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The Securitisation
of Climate Change and
the Governmentalisation
of Security
Franziskus von Lucke
New Security Challenges
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The Securitisation
of Climate Change
and the
Governmentalisation
of Security
Institute of Political Science
University of Tübingen
Tübingen, Germany
New Security Challenges

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Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the continuous support
of a number of people. The journey that eventually led to this book started
at the University of Hamburg in the seminars of Angela Oels, which gave
me a first glimpse into the rabbit hole of Foucauldian governmentality
studies and climate politics. Thus, many thanks to Angela Oels for the
inspiration, various interesting discussions and the fruitful collaboration in
the CliSAP excellence cluster. I am also very grateful for the support of
Antje Wiener and Michael Brzoska during my time at the University of
Hamburg.
The journey then continued at the University of Tübingen where I
want to particularly thank my PhD supervisor Thomas Diez who sup-
ported my theoretical ideas from the beginning and with whom I had
countless fruitful debates on governmentality, power, securitisation and
climate change. I am also obliged to my colleagues, the student assistants
and my fellow PhD students in Tübingen, with whom I had great discus-
sions, who helped to compile empirical data and who proofread the book.
Thus, many thanks go to Zehra Wellmann, Schielan Babat, Sandra Dürr,
Thea Güttler, Leonie Haueisen, Benno Keppner, Miriam Keppner,
Katharina Krause, Hanna Spanhel and Josefa Velten. Beyond the Tübingen
crowd, a special thanks to Stefan Elbe, whose ideas greatly inspired my
theoretical approach, and who gave me invaluable feedback on earlier ver-
sions of this book. I am also grateful for the input at workshops, confer-
ences and particularly in the Tübingen IR colloquium. In particular, I
want to thank Ingrid Boas, Olaf Corry, Rita Floyd, Stefano Guzzini,
Andreas Hasenclever, Markus Lederer, Matthias Leese, Matt McDonald,
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Aysem Mert, Delf Rothe and Jürgen Scheffran. Finally, I am indebted to

my interview partners in the US, Mexico, Germany and the UK who took
the time to openly discuss with me the climate security debates in their
respective countries.
Last but not least, a special thanks to my wife Sabrina von Lucke, to my
children as well as to my family and friends who had to endure me in times
of crisis, always took the time to listen to my ideas and continuously helped
me to keep up my motivation to continue this journey until the end.
Tübingen Franziskus von Lucke

29.02.2020
Praise for The Securitisation of Climate Change and
the Governmentalisation of Security
“In this important book, Franziskus von Lucke provides a theoretically sophisti-
cated and empirically rich account of the relationship between security and climate
change. Developing a Foucauldian-inspired account of securitization, the book
rejects blanket or universal claims about the climate change–security relationship,
instead insisting on the need to critically examine how the securitization of climate
change plays out in particular empirical contexts. Exploring the cases of the US,
Germany and Mexico, von Lucke points to distinctive dynamics of securitization
in these settings, with different implications for the practices these in turn encour-
age. Ultimately, this book constitutes an important addition to literature on the
relationship between climate change and security, while developing a distinct and
nuanced account of securitization that will be of interest to a wide range of schol-
ars of security in international relations.”
—Associate Professor Matt McDonald is a Reader in International Relations at
the University of Queensland, Australia
“In 2019 a number of states and other actors (notably the European Union) have
made climate emergency declarations. It is therefore more important than ever to
understand what the securitization of the climate means. That is: Who can securi-
tize? What security measures are likely/deemed legitimate by relevant audiences?
How does securitization affect the population within and outside a securitizing
state? And perhaps most importantly of all, will it succeed? Franziskus von Lucke’s
carefully researched book offers answers to all of these questions and many others
besides. von Lucke proceeds by examining with the US, Mexico and Germany,
three real-life empirical cases of climate securitization. Each one provides unique
insights that enable a fuller understanding of climate security. Accessibly written
this is a must read for scholars and practitioners alike.”
—Dr Rita Floyd, University of Birmingham, UK, author of The Morality of
Security: A theory of just Securitization, 2019
“With great empirical detail and conceptual clarity, the book compares discourses
and practices of climate security in different contexts. An essential reading for any-
one interested in international climate politics, securitization theory, governmen-
tality and the notion of power in International Relations.”
—Dr Delf Rothe, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy Hamburg
at the University of Hamburg, Germany
Contents
1 Introduction and Theoretical Framework 1
2 United States: Climate Change, National Security

and the Climatisation of the Defence Sector 59
3 Germany: Climate Change, Human Security

and Southern Populations117
4 Mexico: Analysing Securitisation in the Global South177
5 Revisiting the Securitisation of Climate Change

and the Governmentalisation of Security225
Index279
ix
About the Author
Franziskus von Lucke is a researcher in International Relations at the

University of Tübingen. His research focuses on critical security studies,
climate politics and climate justice, and he has worked extensively on the
securitisation of climate change. His works have appeared in
Geopolitics, the Journal of International Relations and Development and in
the Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen.
xi
List of Abbreviations
ASP American Security Project

BMU Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und
Reaktorsicherheit – Federal Ministry for the Environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (German
Environmental Ministry) (temporarily renamed BMUB in 2013)
BMVg Bundesministerium der Verteidigung – Federal Ministry of
Defence (Germany)
BMZ Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und
Entwicklung – Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and
Development (Germany)
C2ES Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
CAN Climate Action Network
CAP Center for American Progress
CCC Centro de Colaboración Cívica – Civic Cooperation Centre
CCS Center for Climate & Security
CDM Clean Development Mechanism
CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands – Christian
Democratic Union of Germany
CEMDA Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental – Mexican Centre for
Environmental Law
CENAPRED Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres – National Centre
for Disaster Prevention
CENTCOM US Central Command
CFR Council on Foreign Relations
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CICC Comisión Intersecretarial de Cambio Climático – Inter-
Ministerial Commission for Climate Change
xiii
xiv List of Abbreviations
CISEN Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional – Centre for

Research and National Security
CMM Centro Mario Molina – Mario Molina Centre
CNAS Center for a New American Security
COP Conference of the Parties
CPI Climate Performance Index
CSIS Center for Strategic & International Studies
CSS Critical Security Studies
DHS Department of Homeland Security
DOD Department of Defense
ENCC Estrategia Nacional de Cambio Climático – National Strategy on
Climate Change
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
ESS European Security Strategy
EU European Union
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency
FONDEN Fondo de Desastres Naturales de México – Mexican Natural
Disaster Fund
FOPREDEN Fondo para la Prevención de Desastres Naturales – Mexican
Federal Fund for the Prevention of Disasters
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GHG Greenhouse Gas
GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit –
German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation
(formerly GTZ)
GLOBE Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment
HDI Human Development Index
IfP-EW Initiative for Peacebuilding – Early Warning Analysis to Action
INE Instituto Nacional de Ecología – National Institute for Ecology
INECC Instituto Nacional de Ecología y Cambio Climático – National
Institute for Ecology and Climate Change
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
MAB Military Advisory Board
NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDCs Nationally Determined Contributions
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NSS National Security Strategy
ODUSD-ES Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense –
Environmental Security
List of Abbreviations xv
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

PAN Partido Acción Nacional – National Action Party
PDCI Partners for Democratic Change International
PEACC Plan Estatal de Acción ante el Cambio Climático – State Level
Plan for Climate Action
PECC Programa Especial de Cambio Climático – Special Programme
on Climate Change
PIK Potsdam Institut für Klimafolgenforschung – Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact Research
PRI Partido Revolucionario Institucional – Institutional
Revolutionary Party
QDR Quadrennial Defense Review
RUSI Royal United Services Institute
SAGARPA Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y
Alimentación – Mexican Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock,
Rural Development, Fisheries and Food
SEGOB Secretaría de Gobernación – Mexican Home Office
SEMARNAT Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales –
Department of the Environment and Natural Resources
SERDP Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program
SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – Social Democratic
Party of Germany
SWP Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Deutsches Institut für
Internationale Politik und Sicherheit – German Institute for
International and Security Affairs
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNAM Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México – National
Autonomous University of Mexico
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNSC United Nations Security Council
US United States
WBGU Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung für Globale
Umweltveränderungen – German Advisory Council on
Global Change
WWF World Wide Fund for Nature
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Sovereign power 21

Table 1.2 Disciplinary power 24
Table 1.3 Governmental power 27
Table 1.4 Sovereign discourse 33
Table 1.5 Disciplinary discourse 35
Table 1.6 Governmental discourse 38
Table 5.1 Political impacts of climate security discourses 239
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction and Theoretical Framework
Introduction
On June 22, 2018, at a European Union (EU) high-level event on
‘Climate, Peace and Security: The Time for Action’ High Representative
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini urged that act-
ing on climate change was to invest ‘in our own security’ (EEAS 2018).
Only a few weeks later, on July 11, 2018, the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) once again discussed ‘climate-related security risks’ and
the Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed made clear that ‘cli-
mate change is a real threat and it is proceeding at a relentless pace’ (UNSC
2018). Finally, in January 2019 at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Greta Thunberg, who has become famous for her passionate and inexo-
rable climate activism and her role in starting the Fridays for Future move-
ment, warned that ‘our house is on fire’ and urged political leaders to
immediately adopt measures to stop climate change (Thunberg 2019a).
These three examples are all part of a longstanding political debate that
has highlighted the catastrophic consequences of climate change and
linked the issue to a range of security concerns (Brauch 2009; Rothe 2016;
Dyer 2018; Lippert 2019; McDonald 2013). This ‘securitisation process’
(Buzan et al. 1998) already began in the 1980s when climate change first
entered international politics and began to be discussed in relation to
broader environmental security concerns (Floyd 2010, p. 75; Hardt
2017). Since then, the debate has expanded continuously and made
© The Author(s) 2020 1

F. von Lucke, The Securitisation of Climate Change and the
Governmentalisation of Security, New Security Challenges,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50906-4_1
2 F. VON LUCKE
climate change the undisputed focal point when it comes to linking

changes in the environment to security concerns (Brzoska and Oels 2011,
p. 51). Politically, these debates have not been without consequences.
Even though the empirical and causal connection between climate change
and security or conflict is contested in the academic literature (Scheffran
et al. 2012b; Barnett 2000; Buhaug et al. 2014), the persistent linking of
the two has nevertheless established climate change as one of the defining
security problems of the twenty-first century in global politics (Chaturvedi
and Doyle 2015; Rothe 2016; Lippert 2019; Dyer 2018; Dalby 2013b).
Linking climate change with security thus has decisively transformed how
political practitioners handle these issues and has legitimised numerous
policies and practices (Floyd 2010; Diez et al. 2016; Oels 2012; UNGA
2009b; WBGU 2008; Scott and Ku 2018). However, despite the apparent
consensus that climate change is not only an environmental concern, eco-
nomic problem or a matter of justice but will very soon have tangible
security implications, activists, political practitioners and scientists differ
considerably when it comes to conceptions of security to make sense of
climate change.
Some have predominately pointed to its ‘national security’ conse-
quences, for example, direct threats to the territorial integrity of states and
the increase in violent conflicts. As a consequence, they have urged to
integrate climate change into the planning of traditional security institu-
tions to prepare for a future ravaged by climate-induced violent conflicts
(CNA 2007, p. 6; CNA Military Advisory Board 2014, p. 21; Chaturvedi
and Doyle 2015; Buxton et al. 2016; Briggs 2012). In stark contrast, oth-
ers have emphasised the repercussions of rising temperatures for ‘human
security’, meaning the general deterioration of living conditions of poor
populations mainly due to resource scarcity and an increase in extreme
weather events (WBGU 2008, p. 1; see also GTZ 2008b, p. 8; Scheffran
et al. 2012a). To handle the resulting problems, they have recommended
lowering the vulnerability of affected populations by transforming prob-
lematic behaviour, to scale up adaptation efforts and to increase develop-
ment aid (GTZ 2008a, p. 55; WBGU 2008, pp. 10, 115). Finally, many
have refrained from concrete threat constructions and have instead
depicted climate change as an overall ‘risk’ that will gradually affect count-
less variables and in turn pertain a whole range of risk groups and areas
around the world (adelphi 2012, p. 31; World Bank et al. 2013, pp. xviii,
xx; Corry 2012; Lippert 2019; Oels 2011; Rothe 2011b). From this point
of view, the appropriate response is to develop sophisticated risk
1 INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 3
management schemes to increase the resilience of risk groups and areas in

order to eventually keep the overall risk at a tolerable level (Greenpeace
México 2010, p. 57; World Bank et al. 2013, p. xvii).
Thus, despite the agreement that climate change is somehow linked to
security problems, the exact nature of the threat, the affected referent
objects as well as the political and normative consequences of handling
climate change as security issue are far from clear. This is not only true for
the political debate but even more so for the academic literature, which
tries to make sense of the empirical ‘climate security nexus’ (Scheffran
et al. 2012a) and the political consequences of linking climate change to
security conceptions (Brauch 2009; Diez et al. 2016; Detraz and Betsill
2009; Corry 2012; McDonald 2013; Dyer 2018; Buxton et al. 2016;
Rothe 2016). The aim of this book is to contribute to these debates by
exploring how specific security representations of climate change have
influenced political debates, policies and practices. It thus focuses on how
to theoretically make sense of the diversity of security conceptions that are
associated with climate change; how different discourses of climate change
as security issue have come about in diverse contexts; whether and how
they make a difference in terms of political consequences and what norma-
tive implications this has.
The Evolution of the Climate Security Nexus in Academic

and Political Debates
Much of the alarming political debate on climate security is based on aca-
demic literature about the nexus between the environment, climate change
and security (Buhaug et al. 2014; Brauch and Scheffran 2012; Lee 2009;
Raleigh and Urdal 2007; Hardt 2017). This research to a considerable
extent draws on older works on environmental security and conflict origi-
nating in the 1980s and 1990s (Ullmann 1983, p. 134; Dalby 2009,
p. 14; Deudney 1990; Deudney and Matthew 1999; Pirages 1991). It also
stems from the theoretical debates about the ‘broadening’ (e.g. not only
states are considered as security threats) and ‘deepening’ (e.g. new episte-
mological foundations of thinking about security and the consideration of
new referent objects such as individuals) of traditional understandings of
state or military security (Ullmann 1983; Booth 1991; Krause and Williams
1996, 1997; Mathews 1989). Empirically, this research focused on the
questions whether and how environmental change could initiate or con-
tribute to social, political or ultimately violent conflict (Homer-Dixon
4 F. VON LUCKE
1991, 1994) as well as lead to hundreds of millions of environmental refu-

gees (Myers 1995). Notwithstanding the weak empirical evidence for any
of these claims (Hartmann 2010, p. 235; Greenpeace 2007; Oels and
Carvalho 2012), a range of different political actors eagerly adopted this
argumentation to advance their political agenda.
At the beginning of these debates in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
climate change was only discussed as one issue besides other environmen-
tal problems that were increasingly linked to security concerns and con-
flict. However, due to its global reach and overall magnitude, it soon
became one of the key dangers. Thus, at the beginning of the 1990s,
several environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (Oels
2012, p. 186; Myers 1995) picked up the security framing to raise atten-
tion for climate change. Amongst other factors, this contributed to impor-
tant breakthroughs in the international negotiations on climate change.
Examples are the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the commencement of the
yearly Conferences of the Parties (COP) in 1995 and the adoption of the
Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which all, to some extent, were also legitimised
by referring to the threatening potential of climate change.
While environmental and climate security debates became less prevalent
towards the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, the increasing scientific
evidence for the far-reaching implications of global warming epitomised in
the ever more detailed reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) (IPCC 2001, 2007) restarted the debate in the mid-2000s
(Brzoska and Oels 2011; Oels and von Lucke 2015). In contrast to the
earlier discussions, other environmental problems largely ceased to play an
important role, and climate change became the undisputed centre of this
novel environmental security debate. Academically, this led to a renewed
interest in questions about how environmental degradation and particu-
larly climate change contributed to violent conflict or migration (Scheffran
et al. 2012b; Barnett 2003; Barnett and Adger 2007; Scheffran et al.
2012a; Hsiang et al. 2013; Gleditsch 2012). While the findings of this
research were mixed (Scheffran et al. 2012c; Barnett and Adger 2005,
2007; Salehyan 2008; Gleditsch 2012), this did not prevent numerous
political actors from claiming that climate change indeed was one of the
main security challenges of our times and necessitated urgent action,
which entailed genuine climate mitigation, but also the development of
military counter-strategies.
Amongst the first political actors that actively waged this debate were
security policy-focused think tanks in the United States (US), which par-
ticularly since 2007 have repeatedly drawn a connection between climate
change and national security (CNA 2007; Campbell et al. 2007; Campbell
2008). Beyond these, the former Vice President of the US and Democratic
presidential candidate Albert ‘Al’ Gore at various occasions highlighted
the far-reaching security implications of climate change (Gore 2007). On
the other side of the Atlantic, the German Advisory Council on Global
Changes (WBGU) published a widely received report on ‘Climate Change
as Security Risk’ (WBGU 2008), and the European Union (EU) as well
discussed the security implications of climate change in 2008 (Solana and
EU Commission 2008) and most recently in 2018 (EEAS 2018).
Moreover, several environmental and human rights NGOs began to
frame climate change as security issue (Greenpeace 2007, 2013; Christian
Aid 2006, 2007; Smith and Vivekananda 2007). On the global level, the
UN Secretary-General has published a widely noted report on the possi-
ble security implications of climate change (UNGA 2009a), and the
UNSC discussed the repercussions of climate change for ‘global peace
and security’ in 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2018 (UNSC 2007, 2011, 2013,
2018; Scott and Ku 2018) and in 2019 held a debate on climate change
as a ‘threat multiplier’ (UNSC 2019). Finally, even though not always
directly mentioning the word ‘security’, Greta Thunberg, Fridays for
Future, as well as other movements such as Extinction Rebellion have
repeatedly emphasised the catastrophic and existentially threatening con-
sequences of climate change. Instead of ‘climate change’, they hence
increasingly use terms such as ‘climate crisis’, ‘climate breakdown’, ‘cli-
mate apocalypse’ or ‘climate emergency’ (Fridays for Future Austria
2019; Thunberg 2019a, b; Extinction Rebellion 2019). While aiming at
conveying the far-reaching consequences of the issue and calling the pub-
lic and politicians to action, they also contribute to the continued securi-
tisation of climate change.
In general, while economic arguments (Stern 2006), justice concep-
tions (Caney 2006, 2010; Finley-Brook 2014) and growing scientific evi-
dences (IPCC 2007) also mattered, constructing climate change as
security issue has been central when it comes to raising attention and facili-
tating as well as accelerating political responses. One example is the 15th
Conference of the Parties (COP) summit in Copenhagen in 2009, which
received unparalleled attention in the media and public debates not least
because it took place during the peak of the global climate security debate
6 F. VON LUCKE
(Oels 2012; Methmann and Rothe 2012). The widespread political and
media attention for the various UNSC debates on climate change and its
implication for peace and security further illustrates this argument (Sindico
2007; Goldenberg 2011; Brössler 2019; Oels and von Lucke 2015; Scott
2015; Scott and Ku 2018). Beyond the international level, linking climate
change to security concerns also changed the domestic debates and influ-
enced a range of policies and political practices in various countries
(Brzoska 2012; Buxton et al. 2016; Rothe 2016). As the Chaps. 2, 3 and
4 of this book show in more detail, it helped to legitimise far-reaching
climate policies in Germany, facilitated an integration of climate change
into security policy in the US and transformed disaster management
approaches in Mexico.
Having said that, these widespread climate security debates did not result
in a consensus about what specific kind of security issue climate change is,
what the appropriate countermeasures could entail and whether linking cli-
mate change to security is to be welcomed from a normative perspective.
The academic literature on the climate security nexus is not of much help
here because even though it casts doubt on the connection between climate
change and security, it has not looked at the resulting political debates. This
raises the questions why and how climate security discourses (entailing dif-
ferent conceptions of security) have become so prominent in the political
debate notwithstanding their sometimes weak empirical foundations and
what political consequences this securitisation has had exactly (see, e.g.,
Floyd 2010; Trombetta 2011; Oels 2012; McDonald 2005, 2008, 2013;
Corry 2012; Dyer 2018; Rothe 2016; Lippert 2019).
According to the original securitisation theory, the Copenhagen School
(Buzan et al. 1998), security issues are socially constructed (Buzan et al.
1998, p. 24) and a successful securitisation establishes a political platform for
the legitimisation of extraordinary measures to counter a threat (Buzan et al.
1998, p. 21). While some might understand the yearly COPs or milestones
of the international climate regime such as Kyoto or the latest Paris
Agreement as extraordinary, most scholars agree that they do not go beyond
normal politics, particularly given their more than questionable effect on the
abatement of climate change (Oels and von Lucke 2015, p. 47; Gardiner
2004; Caney 2016; Buzan and Wæver 2009; Stripple 2002). The increasing
criticism by social movements and climate activists such as Greta Thunberg,
Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, which have become much
more vocal since 2016, further underline that the current handling of cli-
mate change is far from extraordinary. Theoretically, one conclusion
hence could simply be that the securitisation of climate change has been
unsuccessful and inconsequential, at least from the perspective of the
Copenhagen School (Oswald Spring and Brauch 2011; Oels 2012). Yet,
notwithstanding the absence of a successful securitisation or extraordinary
responses in Copenhagen terms, many scholars have continued to analyse
the climate security debate from a broader securitisation perspective. Based
on the ‘stubborn persistence’ (Ciuta 2009, p. 312) of so many political prac-
titioners who keep calling climate change a security threat, these scholars
assume that there must be political advantages in doing so, on which the
original concept of securitisation does not focus (Brzoska 2009; McDonald
2012; Detraz and Betsill 2009; Corry 2012).
Thus, instead of a clear-cut threshold between politicisation or normal
politics and securitisation, this literature understands the process as a con-
tinuum (Diez et al. 2016, pp. 18–19; Oels and von Lucke 2015; Bigo and
Tsoukala 2008; Stritzel 2007; Vuori 2008). In order to assess the effects
of securitisation, it has largely focused on counterfactual reasoning and
measuring the degree of success based on policies which without the secu-
ritisation would not have been accepted or seen as legitimate in the politi-
cal debate (Trombetta 2008, p. 600). This has opened up a whole range
of research avenues in relation to (different) climate security debates. A
common finding is that there are multiple forms of securitisation in the
case of climate change that heavily depend on the broader context in
which they take place and that can have very different political conse-
quences (Diez et al. 2016; Grauvogel and Diez 2014; Detraz and Betsill
2009; McDonald 2013; Trombetta 2011; Oels 2011; Corry 2012). These
consequences are not necessarily extraordinary but nevertheless differ
considerably from how the issue was handled before the security dimen-
sion was considered. The debate thus has already come a long way in
overcoming some of the problems of the Copenhagen School when it
comes to analysing the securitisation of climate change. However, the
existing literature still has considerable blind spots, not only concerning
the theoretical conception of securitisation and its political consequences
but also in terms of its limited empirical focus.
The Missing Conceptualisation of Power and the Absence

of Detailed Case Studies
Concerning theory, a key shortcoming of the existing research is an insuf-
ficient problematisation of the role of power in securitisation processes.
8 F. VON LUCKE
Taking a closer look at the micro dynamics and actual practices of power
(Adler-Nissen and Pouliot 2014; Barnett and Duvall 2005; Burgess 2011)
can help to theoretically substantiate several of the core findings of the
securitisation literature and thus benefit the development of a more coher-
ent understanding of securitisation in general. A closer look reveals that
power relations are involved in enabling securitisation in the first place by
forming the basis or context from which certain actors can legitimately
speak security, by working as catalyst for political attention and by agenda-
setting (Burgess 2011, pp. 40–41; Hansen 2000, p. 303). Moreover, they
constrain the securitising actors’ choices concerning the security argu-
ments they can use (i.e. which stand a chance of resonating within a spe-
cific context) and hence lead to very different forms of securitisation
entailing a diverse set of security conceptions (Balzacq 2011a, p. 26;
Trombetta 2011, p. 141). Beyond that, different forms of power shape
the political consequences that specific security discourses can have by
transforming governance practices and making possible particular policies
and ruling out others (Trombetta 2011, p. 142; Balzacq 2011a, p. 16;
Elbe 2009, p. 15). Finally, understanding the underlying power dynamics
can also contribute to a more thorough and nuanced discussion of the
normative implications of securitisation (Elbe 2009, pp. 157–158; Floyd
2007a, 2011; Nyman and Burke 2016).
One of the crucial problems of the existing securitisation literature in
relation to power is that, on the one hand, the Copenhagen School and
some of its extensions have mainly operated with a state-centred top-down
conception of security. In many cases, this implies a traditional and one-
dimensional understanding of political power (Trombetta 2008, p. 600,
2011, p. 139; Williams 2003). This does not adequately capture the much
more nuanced pathways of power in securitisation processes, as the exten-
sive debates about different forms of climate security exemplify. On the
other hand, alternative approaches to securitisation such as the Paris
School of (in)securitisation around Didier Bigo and Jef Huysmans (Bigo
2002, 2008, 2009; Huysmans 2002, 2004) and the literature on risk
(Kessler 2012, p. 20; Aradau and van Munster 2007; Lobo-Guerrero
2007; Neal 2004; Hameiri 2008; Hameiri and Jones 2013) have gone
towards the other extreme. Here, securitisation is predominantly concep-
tualised as an ongoing and low-key process in which professionals of (in)
security slowly expand a never-ending state of exception (Bigo 2002,
p. 73; Bigo and Tsoukala 2008). In between these two more extreme
poles on the power continuum are studies that have looked at different
‘frames’ or ‘discourses’ of climate security (McDonald 2013; Detraz and

Betsill 2009; von Lucke et al. 2014; Grauvogel and Diez 2014). These
works circumvent the problem of overestimating one particular under-
standing of security or power. However, they primarily derive these differ-
ent climate security discourses from the existing literature. In doing so,
they lack a deeper theoretically grounded problematisation of how exactly
different forms of political power lie at the heart of different securitisations
and enable different political consequences.
Another substantial gap in the literature on the securitisation of climate
change concerns its empirical scope and depth. Apart from notable excep-
tions (Detraz and Betsill 2009; McDonald 2012, 2013; Diez et al. 2016;
Rothe 2016; Floyd 2010), most works primarily make a theoretical point
(Corry 2012; Methmann and Rothe 2012; Oels 2011, 2012; Trombetta
2011), which has led them to chiefly rely on exemplary data without sub-
stantively contributing to our understanding of the climate security debate
and its political consequences in actual empirical cases. Moreover, they
often focus on the global debate on climate security and its implications
for the international climate negotiations (Oels 2011, 2012, 2013;
Methmann and Rothe 2012; Methmann 2011, 2014; Trombetta 2008,
2011; Corry 2012; Scott and Ku 2018), on security in the Anthropocene
(Dalby 2013a, 2014; Fagan 2017; Hardt 2017; Harrington and Shearing
2017), or on individual case studies (McDonald 2012), and here mainly
on the US (Floyd 2010; Brzoska 2009; Hartmann 2009; Fletcher 2009;
Harris 2002; Leiserowitz 2005; Nagel 2011; Richert 2009) or on specific
international institutions (Scott and Ku 2018; Lippert 2019). Only very
few studies compare different securitisation processes in diverse political
and cultural contexts (Diez et al. 2016; Rothe 2016), which is necessary
in order to understand the context-dependence and multiplicity of securi-
tisation and its political consequences. Closely connected, there is a
Western bias in the research on the securitisation of climate change, hence
it has largely neglected to study securitisation processes in the Global
South (Boas 2014; Bilgin 2010; von Lucke 2018). This is especially sur-
prising in the context of climate change, as most climate security discourses
as well as the estimates of the IPCC (2015, pp. 13, 50, 54) predict the first
and most severe effects to take place in (poor) Southern countries, beg-
ging the question whether the political effects of securitisation differ under
these circumstances.
Thus, there is considerable demand for detailed comparative empirical
studies that analyse the securitisation of climate change across different
10 F. VON LUCKE
political and cultural contexts. Such studies can help to move the debate
beyond the development of ever more sophisticated theoretical approaches
without actually applying them to empirical cases. It also strengthens our
understanding of the concrete political and institutional effects of linking
climate change to security conceptions.
Core Argument and Structure of the Book

The chief purpose of this book is thus to make sense of the multifaceted
securitisation of climate change in different contexts (Brauch 2009; Detraz
and Betsill 2009; Floyd 2010; McDonald 2013; Trombetta 2012; Oels
2012) while at the same time advancing the theoretical concept of securi-
tisation. For this purpose, it offers a novel take on securitisation theory by
focusing on the so far largely neglected role of power. The emphasis on
power helps to better capture and theoretically make sense of the ambigu-
ous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of
security itself (Opitz 2008, p. 206; Elbe 2009, p. 76; Hardt 2017). It also
expands our understanding of the powerful political and normative conse-
quences of constructing non-traditional issues in terms of security.
While several extensions of the Copenhagen School and entirely new
approaches to securitisation have touched upon this issue, in order to fully
understand the role of power in securitisation processes, we need an alter-
native theoretical approach. As the second part of this chapter discusses in
more detail, a Foucauldian governmentality framework (Foucault 2006a,
b; Dean 2010; Dillon 2006) lends itself particularly well for this endeav-
our (Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero 2008; Elbe 2009, 2011; Oels 2011,
2012, 2013). It primarily rests on Michel Foucault’s governmentality lec-
tures (2006a, b), which claim that political rule, in general, has undergone
a decisive transformation. Thus, we can witness a ‘governmentalisation of
the state’ (Foucault 2006b, p. 163), which means that governance does
not only rest anymore on direct top-down interventions by the state (sov-
ereign power). Instead, it consists of a power triangle, which includes
‘productive’ forms of power (Foucault and Faubion 2002; Foucault and
Gordon 1980) such as disciplinary and governmental power that try to
control and transform the behaviour of individuals or to govern the popu-
lation through indirect risk management strategies (Foucault 2006b,
pp. 161–165). This transformation does not only apply to governance in
general, but at least since the 1980s, there is also a ‘governmentalisation
of security’ (Elbe 2009, p. 9; Oels 2011, 2012), entailing a
disentanglement of (successful) securitisation from exclusively extraordi-

nary measures and the growing importance of disciplinary and govern-
mental power in the realm of security. From this vantage point,
securitisation becomes a specific form of ‘security governance1’ that ren-
ders issues governable resting on different forms of power, which in turn
can be linked to contemporary security conceptions ranging from national
security, human security to risk (Elbe 2009, pp. 12, 14–18). Eventually,
the securitisation of political issues can bring about very specific and far-
reaching yet not necessarily extraordinary political consequences, depend-
ing on which power forms and security conceptions prevail.
Conceptualising securitisation as part of this governmentalisation of
security and hence as a specific way to exercise political power can help us
to better understand at least four interrelated aspects of the securitisation
process. Firstly, it establishes a theoretical framework for understanding
the continuous transformation of security and the parallelism of (and con-
nections between) different power forms. A governmentality perspective
thus sets the concept of securitisation into a wider historical and cultural
context, in which different security practices constantly struggle for politi-
cal relevance (Opitz 2008, p. 206; Elbe 2009, p. 12; Foucault 2006b,
p. 76). Secondly, it sheds light on the role of power in constituting the
subjects and objects of securitisation. Based on its more nuanced under-
standing of political power, such a framework goes beyond the analysis of
fixed securitising actors, referent objects and audiences and instead shows
how these are constantly created, legitimised or discredited within differ-
ent discourses of security (Burgess 2011, p. 40; Hansen 2000, p. 303).
Thirdly, the multifaceted and dynamic conceptualisation of power inher-
ent in the idea of the governmentalisation of security contributes to make
sense of the diversity of securitisations and the varying political conse-
quences. Depending on which power forms overweigh and how they are
combined and enacted in different political and cultural contexts, different
policies or practices seem legitimate or are discarded as irrelevant.
Securitisation is hence linked to the exercise of political power by helping
to put new issues onto the agenda, by acting as a catalyst for the political
debate and by directly influencing key policies and practices. Finally, a
governmentality perspective provides a theoretical frame of reference for
discussing the normative effects and desirability of securitisation in general
1
I understand governance in a wider sense as constituting and arranging actors around a
discursively constructed ‘governance-object’ (Methmann 2014, p. 10; Corry 2010).
12 F. VON LUCKE
and different discourses of climate security in particular (Nyman and

Burke 2016; Floyd 2011; McDonald 2011).
Beyond advancing this theoretical re-conceptualisation of securitisa-
tion, this book strengthens the detailed comparative research on the secu-
ritisation of climate change. Instead of analysing climate security discourses
at the global level, it thus focuses on three in-depth country case studies,
namely the US, Germany and Mexico. It thereby includes two developed
countries with often diametrically opposed policies on climate change and
different political cultures, in which the security implications of climate
change have been discussed very prominently. Yet, it also explores the so
far under-researched issue of securitisation in the Global South and in
countries that are predicted to be highly affected by the adverse effects of
climate change (Boas 2014; Bilgin 2010). Looking at the domestic debates
of these different countries instead of the international negotiations does
not only close a gap in the literature but also has methodological advan-
tages. It makes it easier to directly trace back how different climate secu-
rity discourses have legitimised and influenced specific policies and
practices and hence helps to overcome one of the core problems of gov-
ernmentality studies that often shy away from looking at the actual imple-
mentation of political programmes (Mckee 2009, pp. 473–474; Bröckling
et al. 2012, pp. 16–17). A further advantage of the comparative case study
design is that it allows studying the securitisation of climate change in
diverse cultural, political and economic environments and thus to inquire
how the broader contexts matter in enabling and shaping specific securiti-
sation processes.
Concerning methodology and the empirical data, the book rests on an
extensive qualitative discourse analysis of the most relevant reports, gov-
ernment documents and parliamentary debates on climate change (and
security) in the three countries between the late 1980s and 2015. In addi-
tion to analysing documents, a range of expert interviews with key politi-
cal practitioners in each country has helped to situate the findings in
country-specific political debates and to uncover important political net-
works. The comparative focus on different country cases and the compre-
hensive analysis of the empirical material allow coming to a detailed and
systematic understanding of how securitisation discourses emerge in spe-
cific political environments, how they function and how this eventually
translates into concrete policies and practices.
In order to advance the above-introduced theoretical and empirical
aims, the second part of this introductory chapter substantiates the
theoretical claims and develops the overall analytical framework. Mainly

building on Michel Foucault’s governmentality lectures (2006a, b) and
contemporary extensions of his work by Stefan Elbe (2009, 2011),
Mitchell Dean (2010) and Angela Oels (2011, 2012), the chapter devel-
ops three distinct climate security discourses which draw on different
forms of political power and are linked to different political effects.
Drawing on this theoretical framework, Chaps. 2, 3 and 4 analyse the cli-
mate security debates in the US, Germany and Mexico. Each chapter
briefly discusses the origins of the climate security debate in the respective
country and then analyses the evolution of different climate security dis-
courses in the period of investigation. Based on this analysis, the chapters
show how each unique combination of discourses and power forms has
legitimised specific political consequences. This includes the empower-
ment of a diverse set of actors as well as changed policies and practices in
key political sectors (environment, defence and security, development and
disaster management). Based on this detailed analysis, Chap. 5 draws
broader comparative conclusions about how securitisation functions in
general, the role of power and the normative implications of securitising
climate change.
Developing an Analytical Framework to Study

(Powerful) Climate Security Discourses
As argued above, a Foucauldian power and governance focused approach
of securitisation can greatly add to our understanding of ongoing securiti-
sation processes in non-traditional sectors such as climate politics. With its
fine-grained analytics of political power, it helps to make sense of the
divergent political effects of different threat constructions beyond and
below extraordinary measures. At the same time, the original securitisa-
tion theory reminds us that invoking security conceptions and designating
something as a threat, be it to national or human security or as a diffuse
risk construction, transforms the political debate and makes possibly a
novel treatment of the issues at stake. It may not always elevate the issue
into high politics or legitimise non-democratic extraordinary measures.
Yet, based on the specific threat constructions and underlying power
forms, it enables new forms of governance (Dean 2010, pp. 266–267)
that without the security framing would not have been accepted as legiti-
mate or have had the same impact.
14 F. VON LUCKE
Starting out from the original ideas of Michel Foucault on governmen-

tality, but also inspired by the works of Stefan Elbe (2009), Angela Oels
(2011, 2012), Mitchell Dean (2010) and others, in this section I intro-
duce a specific reading of the governmentality approach and discuss its
relevance for securitisation theory. The origins of the governmentality
approach lie in Foucault’s research on political power and particularly in
his lectures at the College de France (Foucault 2006a, b) where he criti-
cises the Political Science research of that time for focusing too much on
repressive forms of power and government (Foucault 1983, p. 83; Oels
2010, p. 172; Lemke 2002, p. 51). The mainstream research mainly con-
ceptualised governance as top-down enterprise carried out by a sovereign
state without much interference of non-state actors or the governed enti-
ties themselves. And despite some nuanced research on power (Lukes
2005; Bachrach and Baratz 1962), the predominant, ‘juridico-political
discourse’ (1979, p. 88, 1983, p. 84) saw power as something that could
be possessed and wielded at will. Power was directly tied to the capacity of
specific actors to control the actions of others (Barnett and Duvall 2005)
and hence conceptualised as something constraining, dominating and
essentially bad, exercised from a top-down perspective over the governed
subjects without many possibilities to resist.
Against this mainstream perspective, Foucault developed his own,
much more diverse understanding of power. For Foucault, power can take
very different forms, for example, strategic games, structuring fields of
possibility and above all is ‘productive’ (Opitz 2008, p. 216). It thus
enables political developments and constitutes subject positions. It mainly
does so by being ingrained in what Foucault called the ‘discourse’ or later
on the ‘dispositive’ (Foucault 2003; Dean 2010, 2012; Jäger and Meier
2009; Aradau et al. 2014a, p. 64). A discourse is a power-knowledge
nexus that constitutes reality in a certain way, thus defining what is right
or wrong and who is empowered to speak the ‘truth’. It is only through
discourse that humans can access reality and knowledge. Thus, all reality
and truth are exposed to and shaped by power dynamics:
Power is a relationship between actors that produce knowledges and truths

that lead to individual and social practices that in turn tend to disseminate
those truths. Knowledge transmits and disseminates the effects of power
[…], while truth is a status given to certain knowledge by power. […] Truth
is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and
sustain it. (Foucault 1980, p. 133)
Power in Foucault’s sense is everywhere not only in instances of direct

influence or in the hands of seemingly powerful individuals. Instead, its
most central functions include the constitution of subject positions, desires
and truths in the first place. Moreover, by having the capacity to be pro-
ductive and empowering, power is not something essentially bad from
which people must be rescued. This clearly distinguishes the Foucauldian
understanding from mainstream views of power as an asymmetrical force
against which no resistance is possible—something which Foucault has
termed ‘domination’ (Lemke 2002, p. 53; Dean 2010, p. 58).
Based on this more nuanced concept of power, Foucault set out to
rethink the concept of governance. In his governmentality lectures, he
starts out from an extensive genealogical analysis of the term ‘to govern’
(Dean 2010, p. 3) and its underlying power forms since the ancient times
and tries to condense the dominant meaning of the term in different
epochs to capture its continuous transformation. In this analysis, not the
first appearance of the term is important but the point in time when peo-
ple begin to consciously deal with it, enabling the development of certain
tactics, strategies and modes of action (Foucault 2006b, p. 425). In order
to reconceptualise contemporary debates on governance and power,
Foucault takes the older, much broader meaning of the term ‘to govern’
as a starting point where governing is not restricted to the state, but also
applies to the governing of the family, the economy or even the self
(Foucault 2006b, p. 183). Thus, contrary to the mainstream understand-
ing, Foucault claims that the term only gradually has become so closely
tied to the idea of the state (Foucault 2006b, p. 135). He then combines
this broader meaning with the idea of different ‘mentalities’ underpinning
governance processes.
The basic question that Foucault tries to answer here was how it became
possible that in modern societies power and governance could concentrate
on the institution of the state (Lemke 2002, p. 58). In this view, gover-
nance in the form of the state is only one very specific way to exercise
power and the state itself becomes a specific ‘tactic’ of government.
Government or governmental power2 as a specific form of power does not
2
In Foucault’s writing, he uses the term ‘governmental management’, which, despite some
differences, sometimes is also equated with ‘bio power’ (Kelly 2009, p. 60; Foucault 2006b,
p. 161). However, for better comparability with the other power forms and in order to delin-
eate my approach from the existing literature, I use the term ‘governmental power’ through-
out this book.
16 F. VON LUCKE
work in a direct, top-down fashion but tries to influence processes at the

level of what Foucault called ‘the population’ (see Foucault 2006b,
pp. 103–116, 156–159, 504–510; Dean 2010, pp. 113–115, 127). It also
tries to use the potential for self-governance of every individual or other
actors in society and hence seeks to only intervene if absolutely necessary
(Dean 2010, p. 121). In its ideal form, the exercise of power in this way
goes almost unnoticed, as it shapes the identities, the needs and desires of
the governed and the knowledge of what is right and wrong.
While different meanings of the term ‘governmentality’ exist (Walters
and Haahr 2005; Dean 2010, p. 24), in this book I focus on a historically
specific one (Foucault 2006b, pp. 162–165; Walters and Haahr 2005,
p. 292), which conceptualises the term as a ‘[…] distinctively new form of
thinking about exercising power in certain societies’ (Dean 2010, p. 28).
It describes a new way of governing especially in Western societies since
the eighteenth century, which instead of governing a territory focuses on
the governance of populations through three different forms of power:
During this era of governmentality political rule is exercised through a com-

plex triangle of sovereignty, discipline and governmental management,
which has the population as its main target and apparatuses of security as its
essential mechanism. (Foucault 2006b, p. 161)
For Foucault, the concept of the population replaces the focus both on the
territory (Mckee 2009, p. 466) and on the family and thus elevates gover-
nance practices to an entirely new level (Foucault 2006b, pp. 157–158;
Dean 2010, p. 127). Contrasting conventional understandings, the term
does not only encompass the plain number of inhabitants of a state terri-
tory. Instead, it aims at all statistical operations that have become possible
with the development of sophisticated social scientific knowledge together
with the fact that state bureaucracies keep track of an endless number of
bio-political characteristics of the population (Foucault 2006b, pp. 74–75).
Examples are mortality statistics, the age and income structure of the pop-
ulation, birth rates and the geographical distribution of these variables
(Foucault 2006b, pp. 156–157). By using this specific knowledge, it has
become possible to not only keep track of past and present developments
but also to look into the future and to project the likely development of
certain variables and risks within the population (Foucault 2006b, p. 396).
It thus is a precondition for the transformation of political power in
general.
The Governmentalisation of Security

The above-described reconceptualisation of power and governance puts a
new light on the concept of securitisation. Contrary to what the original
framework implies (Buzan et al. 1998), securitisation processes do not
consist of given subjects that utter speech acts independently from the
overall discursive framing of the situation (Hansen 2000, p. 303). In fact,
the subjects of security (e.g. securitising actors) cannot be thought of as
existing prior to securitisation but are a product of the power relations
ingrained in the securitisation process itself (Burgess 2011, p. 49).
Ultimately, securitisation can be seen as an alternative way of exercising
political power, and Foucault’s governmentality approach can help us to
unpack this relationship.
The starting point is the idea of a ‘governmentalisation of the state’
since the eighteenth century, which implies that top-down, sovereign
power ceases to be the dominant way of ruling societies and is accompa-
nied by other variants such as disciplinary and governmental power
(Foucault 2006b, p. 163). This refocuses the attention of the state away
from securing a territory by conventional security institutions such as the
army, the police or intelligence services towards fostering the well-being of
the population using a triangle of three different power forms and various
‘apparatuses’ or ‘mechanisms’ of security (Dean 2010, p. 29; Foucault
2006b, p. 161; Elbe 2009, p. 62). Instead of direct force, coercion or the
issuing of laws, the exercise of power rests on statistical knowledge about
the population and methods to discretely influence certain variables in the
background (Foucault 2006b, pp. 90–97; Dean 2010, p. 29). This also
leads to a blurring of the formerly much stricter boundaries between ‘nor-
mal’ politics and ‘extraordinary’ security practices. On the one hand, secu-
rity becomes a technology of government, a way of ‘rendering things
governable’ and thus changing how populations can be governed (Oels
2011, 2013; Opitz 2008, p. 2017). On the other hand, security practices
and theoretical concepts themselves undergo a transformation and become
less extraordinary and more multifaceted. Examples are new security con-
cepts such as human security, environmental security, gender security or
risk (Hardt 2017, p. 43). It is exactly this double transformation that
marks the connection between the governmentality approach and securi-
tisation theory. Elbe describes this as the ‘governmentalisation of security’
that has its origins in the 1980s and which means that security does no
longer only draw on a sovereign form of power but incorporates
18 F. VON LUCKE
disciplinary and particularly governmental forms of power as well (Elbe

2009, pp. 9, 64, 71, 78).
The origins of this transformation of security lie in changing societal
features and connected political and scientific debates that required new
forms of government (Collier 2009). In this process, the importance of
traditional security technologies declines, and they are combined with less
direct and top-down forms of security based on the power triangle. Thus,
the governmentalisation of security as well contributes to the blurring of
(normal) and extraordinary or security politics. Security institutions and
actors are progressively legitimised to help in fostering the welfare of the
population outside the narrow military realm (Elbe 2009, p. 64). The field
of environmental and especially climate politics illustrates this develop-
ment. It shows the double movement of a ‘securitisation’ of non-traditional
issues and a ‘climatisation’ (Oels 2012; Maertens 2018) of traditional con-
cepts of security (Trombetta 2011; Corry 2012; Floyd and Matthew
2013; Hardt 2017), which I term as the ‘bidirectional’ qualities of
securitisation.
Following the premise of the governmentalisation of security means
that we cannot conceptualise securitisation as mainly resting on sovereign
power and its direct, extraordinary and supposedly negative effects—as
done by the Copenhagen School (Opitz 2008, pp. 219, 220). Instead, to
adequately account for the transformation of security, we should broaden
the analytical approach and allow for different forms of securitisation that
draw on different forms of power. The process of securitising an issue in
this sense is an instance of governing, a process of rendering things gov-
ernable through the lens of security and the application of different forms
of power. As the term ‘governance’ in this reading of securitisation implies,
securitisation processes are not a priori considered as something extraordi-
nary; rather they constitute a specific way of governing, which may or may
not entail extraordinary effects. However, this does not mean to entirely
equate normal politics or governance with security. Instead, the core
premise of securitisation theory still holds: designating something as an
existential threat is different from a mere politicisation because it generates
a sense of urgency, increases attention and eventually can narrow down the
deliberative process. Security can act as a catalyst for the exercise of any
form of political power and eventually can render the situation in a certain
way and thus constitute a powerful ‘security truth’ (Burgess 2011, p. 39).
Yet, based on a governmentality reading, this process becomes much more
multifaceted, with different conceptions of security and power involved

and different possible consequences of securitisation processes.
The Triangle of Sovereign, Disciplinary and Governmental Power

The ‘power triangle’ of sovereign, disciplinary and governmental power
(Foucault 2006b, pp. 76, 161) is central to the governmentality approach
and also at the core of my reconceptualisation of securitisation. It accrues
from Foucault’s genealogy of the governance concept, in which he con-
denses the three forms of power from different historical periods. Sovereign
power is the oldest one and connected to the feudalistic territorial or ‘judi-
cial state’ prior to the sixteenth century, which was defined by its territory
and governed mainly through issuing laws and direct interventions of the
sovereign (Foucault 2006b, p. 164). From the sixteenth century onwards,
the gradually arising ‘administrative state’, the declining importance of the
state territory and the increasing focus of political rule on individuals and
disciplinary practices marked the advent of disciplinary power (Foucault
2006b, p. 19). Finally, the eighteenth century saw the emergence of the
‘governmental state’ and governmental power, which is defined by its rela-
tionship to the population and to novel ‘security mechanisms’ or ‘appara-
tuses of security’ (Foucault 2006b, p. 36; Dean 2010, p. 29). Providing
security not for a territory or individuals but for the entire population and
at the same time seeking to ensure its welfare and prosperity became the
central focus of governance practices.
In the following, I elaborate on the emergence and characteristics of
each of the three power forms and link them to contemporary conceptions
of security. I also briefly discuss them from a normative perspective, which
rests on Foucault’s ethos of siding with the subjugated and oppressed
(Pickett 1996, p. 465), his rejection of domination (Foucault and Gordon
1980, p. 120) and the aim to minimise the main dangers of climate-
security discourses (Elbe 2009, pp. 157–158; Pickett 1996, p. 461).
S overeign Power: Defending the National Security of Territories

Sovereign power is similar to mainstream conceptions of power, for exam-
ple, the power to enforce one’s will over others’ (Weber 1976, p. 571) or
what Stephen Lukes describes as one-dimensional view on power (Lukes
2005, p. 16). It also resembles a Machiavellian or Hobbesian notion of
power that mainly seeks to control a certain territory and to sustain the
reign of the ‘prince’ or ‘leviathan’ (Foucault 2006b, p. 100; Opitz 2008,
20 F. VON LUCKE
pp. 207–208). Consequently, sovereign power is mostly exercised by the

sovereign—often the state and its agencies such as the police or the mili-
tary—in a highly visible and direct way over a defined territory, with its
main target being the perpetuation of sovereignty itself (Foucault 2003,
p. 149). It has a binary and law-like character defining what is permitted
or forbidden, punishing those who deviate from the law (Dean 2010,
p. 29; Foucault 2006b, p. 149). In general, the exercise of sovereign
power is tied to hard-politics, direct interventions of the state and its agen-
cies such as issuing and enforcing laws, collecting taxes or punishing devi-
ant behaviour—in the most extreme cases with death (Foucault 2003,
p. 240, 2006b, p. 75). Ultimately, sovereign power culminates in a focus
on traditional security conceptions and actions by the defence or military
sector that all aim at preserving the reign of the sovereign over its territory.
Transferred to contemporary security debates and security discourses,
this form of power can be linked to a state and military-focused national
security conception (Elbe 2009, p. 86). In other words, national secu-
rity—or equivalent concepts such as territorial security, state security but
also international security and order—are manifestation of sovereign
power. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that sovereign power in gen-
eral is broader and does not necessarily have to entail a military element.
However, it is always a highly visible, top-down and direct form of evoking
security and primarily aims at the state territory, which in political practice
(especially in the realm of international relations) often intersects with
national security. Moreover, in combination with the catalysing effect of
designating something as existential threat, invoking sovereign power in
securitisation process can go beyond the law and can legitimise a tempo-
rary (or even permanent) state of exception where the sovereign decision
replaces the written law (see Agamben 1998, p. 11, 2005; Schmitt 1963).
Thus, while originally being broader, for analytical purposes it is useful to
narrow it down to national security. The effects of sovereign power in
securitisation processes therefore resemble what the Copenhagen School
describes as effects of successful securitisation: more attention for the
problem at stake and a more serious handling, though also possibly a
bypassing and acceleration of normal and democratic political procedures.
From a normative standpoint, sovereign power has some advantages.
Most importantly, it draws attention to issues that otherwise would prob-
ably not had been handled seriously, thereby elevating those issues into
the realm of high-politics. This can be useful to draw attention to so far
overlooked problems and can, at least until it reaches a certain intensity,
have a politicising effect because it brings issues on the political agenda.

Furthermore, an acceleration of typically slow and bureaucratic proce-
dures can sometimes be an advantage. Both the attention generating and
accelerating qualities of securitisation have been referred to as legitimisa-
tion for securitising non-military issues such as climate change or HIV/
AIDS (Floyd 2013, pp. 281–282; Ingram 2010; Elbe 2006). On the
downside, however, sovereign power also entails problematic features. It
can narrow down the focus towards predominantly direct and short-term
actions such as police or military interventions. Thus, a political response
in the wake of a sovereign-based securitisation often neglects the root
causes of the problem. It is a reactive form of governance that tries to cure
the immediate symptoms, thereby running the risk of worsening the
underlying problem in the end. Finally, a securitisation focusing on sover-
eign power tends to concentrate power in the hands of state, security and
defence actors. It thereby increases secrecy, narrows down the space for
political discussions and excludes societal and non-governmental actors.
Consequently, in its extreme forms, it diminishes the opportunities for
democratic control and public scrutiny. The following Table 1.1 sum-
marises the characteristics of sovereign power.
Table 1.1 Sovereign power

Normative assessment
Modes of Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

action sectors conceptions
Direct, State, military, National More attention, Panic politics,

visible, security, defence security, elevating issues extraordinary
negative, and intelligence territorial to high politics, measures, state of
law, ban, sector, security, acceleration of exception,
attention hard-politics, international procedures, short-cutting of
raising, foreign policy, order and definitive and (democratic)
acceleration state as most security, classical direct state action procedures,
of processes important actor securitisation narrowing down
Target: and referent debates, military
Mostly state object action, short-term
territory measures, secrecy
Partly based on Foucault (2006a, b), Elbe (2009) and Dean (2010)
22 F. VON LUCKE
isciplinary Power: Securing Individual Human Security

D
Instead of controlling a territory, disciplinary power aims at transforming
individual behaviour towards a predefined, ideal-typical norm. Using
sophisticated surveillance technologies and control mechanisms (Foucault
2006b, pp. 89–90), it wants to discipline, classify, control and ultimately
optimise individual behaviour (Foucault 1975, p. 143). Examples are mili-
tary drill schemes that use detailed codes of conduct and prescribe certain
body movements, for example, when handling a rifle, in order to reign in
and transform individual behaviour towards a predefined purpose. In
short, disciplinary power is a deductive approach that divides reality into
the abnormal and normal based on an ideal-typical or optimal model of
what this ‘normal’ is—a process which Foucault termed ‘normation’
(Foucault 2006b, p. 89). In contrast to sovereign power, it is not mainly
a negative but productive way of exercising power that instead of taking
things away tries to create and transform identities and truth regimes
(Elbe 2009, p. 117; Dean 2010, p. 81). It is also very accurate, operates
at the micro-level and tries to control every single part of the process
(Foucault 2006b, p. 74). Accordingly, it requires many resources and con-
tinuous attention and thus involves a constant monitoring of its subjects.
Eventually, its goal is to optimise processes by assessing and understanding
the function of every single element in the process and then arrange these
elements into the optimal order (Foucault 2006b, p. 89). Finally, while its
original conception particularly connects it to (oppressive) institutions like
the military, prisons or hospitals (Foucault 1975, p. 215), disciplinary
power can empower a variety of actors ranging from the state to non-state
actors such as NGOs, church organisations and think tanks.
Looking at existing security conceptions, disciplinary power particu-
larly materialises in human or individual security approaches (Elbe 2009,
p. 113) or in related conceptions such as human vulnerability or food
security. All of these security conceptions focus on individuals and try to
enhance and empower disadvantaged people towards a predefined ideal
typical norm: the secure, free and thus emancipated individual that is able
to fulfil its human potential (Booth 1991, p. 319). The original concep-
tion of human security that emerged in the political realm (Boutros-Ghali
1992; UNDP 1994), as well as comparable academic concepts such as
individual security (Booth 1991, 2005; Wyn Jones 2005), tried to set up
a new and positive concept of security. Aiming at individuals, these con-
cepts primarily tried to come up with an alternative to the then dominant
state centric national security conceptions. The goal was to empower
individuals not states and to facilitate policies that benefited their well-
being. However, in the course of political and academic debates, the con-
cept of human security has undergone a discursive shift and is partly
employed to control individual behaviour (Duffield 2005, 2007; Duffield
and Waddell 2006; Oels and von Lucke 2015; McCormack 2010).
Especially in a securitisation context, it can be transformed and (miss)used
to facilitate the interests of powerful state, military and particularly
Northern actors (McCormack 2010). It can function as a justification for
interventions and as rationalisation of military and neo-colonial action
(McCormack 2010, p. 36; Devetak 2007, p. 152; Eriksson 1999, p. 318).
Hence, the originally well-intentioned concept can itself become per-
verted and thus normatively problematic (Floyd 2007a, b).
Despite its emancipating origins, in contemporary political and security
debates, human security often entails a distinction between people of the
Global North and those living in the Global South. Thus, the ideal typical
norm is the well-fed, healthy, productive, democratic and wealthy citizen
in advanced and highly developed Western societies. Based on this ‘nor-
mal’, the human security framework produces an opposing ‘abnormal’
that has to be disciplined, or ‘secured’ often by organisations from the
Global North (Lie 2015; Mawuko-Yevugah 2010; Duffield and Waddell
2006, p. 2). In this example, we can observe the productive elements of
disciplinary power that have a bearing on the governed as well as on the
governing. Disciplinary power prescribes certain identities and instruc-
tions and hence empowers some actors to act (e.g. Western organisations)
whereas it constitutes others as passive elements of ‘normation’ and gov-
ernance (e.g. endangered individuals in countries of the Global South).
Ultimately, not least due to its ‘soft’ image in comparison to national secu-
rity, human security especially empowers human rights and development
NGOs to monitor individuals that do not resemble the predefined
ideal norm.
Looking at it from a normative perspective, the positive effect of a dis-
ciplinary and human security centred securitisation is that the focus shifts
from the emphasis on the security of states towards the needs and insecuri-
ties of individuals. It redirects the attention towards the most vulnerable
actors, possibly legitimising policies in their interest, for instance, develop-
ment aid or disaster relief measures. Furthermore, it broadens the spec-
trum of the actors that legitimately can participate in the securitisation
process and its political aftermath, thereby opening debates and avoiding
the tendency to secrecy that often comes along with national security
24 F. VON LUCKE
Table 1.2 Disciplinary power

Modes of action Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

sectors conceptions
Productive, Micro- Human Focus on Surveillance,

indirect, perspective, security, individuals, less visible—
‘normation’, individuals, individual more long-term less easy to
disciplinary, broadened security, food oriented, detect, identity
surveillance, actor security, empowerment, and truth
optimise, spectrum, non- vulnerability reduced secrecy, production,
creating state actors, broad spectrum of paternalistic
identities and development actors political
truths, individual problems measures,
referent object neglect of local
Target: Mostly solutions
individuals
conceptions. The main danger of a disciplinary power focused securitisa-

tion lies in the discursive shift and in taking away agency from threatened
people (often ‘poor individuals’) to define the situation and the means
necessary to overcome the problems. Due to the focus on an artificial ideal
typical norm, it entails a paternalistic element and can oppress local solu-
tions that might have been much more effective in a specific context. A
further problematic aspect is the necessity of a constant surveillance of the
governed individuals, which can constrain their freedom and suppress
alternative solutions. Finally, its less direct and oppressive character, for
instance, exemplified by actions of seemingly ‘good’ grassroots or NGO
actors, makes this power form less visible. This can obscure the possibly
inadequate democratic legitimisation of interventions and actors. Table 1.2
summarises the characteristics of disciplinary power.
overnmental Power: Managing the Risks of Populations

G
The third and ‘youngest’ power form, governmental power, is directly
related to the governmentalisation of the state and the emergence of the
population as the main referent object. It mainly operates through risk
management schemes to pre-empt problematic developments that could
imperil the well-being of the population. Moreover, instead of normation,

it relies on the inductive concept of ‘normalisation’ (Foucault 2006b,
p. 98). Normalisation tries to statistically generate a normal distribution of
certain values and then focuses at bringing outliers down to this average
(Foucault 2006b, pp. 97–98). According to Foucault, this is more effi-
cient than ‘normation’ because it uses the natural dynamics of the popula-
tion instead of acting against them (Foucault 2006b, p. 74). If handled
properly, ‘the phenomena themselves’ will eventually bring about their
own curtailment (Foucault 2006b, pp. 69, 92, 98, 102). Consequently,
one of the most important instruments of governmental power is social-
scientific knowledge that enables to measure and discreetly influence pop-
ulation dynamics. In order to manage risks based on the concept of
normalisation, a key instrument of governmental power is the focus on
risk or outlier groups (Dean 2010, p. 119). This is more cost-efficient
(Foucault 2006b, pp. 498–499; Elbe 2009, p. 67) and in the spirit of
‘laissez-faire’ or ‘laissez-passer’ (Foucault 2006b, p. 69) ensures that gov-
ernmental power only intervenes as little as possible in the natural dynam-
ics of the population. Thus, the goal is not to regulate every aspect of
life—as this would soon overstretch the government’s resources—but to
only intervene where it is absolutely necessary to safeguard the overall
population (Dean 2010, p. 121; Foucault 2006b, pp. 69, 498).
A further characteristic of governmental power is its emphasis on gov-
erning the future by trying to (moderately) influence developments in
their early stages and hence avoiding more far-reaching interventions at a
later stage (Foucault 2006b, p. 39). This mainly involves risk schemes and
probability calculations (Foucault 2006b, pp. 94–95) that aim at prevent-
ing problems and risks from spiralling out of control. It also means that
the goal is to keep risks at a tolerable level but not necessarily to eliminate
them completely (Foucault 2006b, pp. 37–38, 66–69). Ultimately, gov-
ernmental power seeks to control circulation dynamics by enabling ‘good’
and containing ‘bad’ circulation (Foucault 2006b, p. 37; Opitz 2008,
p. 213). An example is the European Union trying to maximise the free-
dom of movement of its citizens but at the same time restricting immi-
grant circulation by strengthening border controls (see Huysmans 2008;
Oels 2009; Bigo 2008). Finally, despite its name, governmental power is
not exclusively tied to the state but empowers a broad range of actors. In
the words of Jef Huysmans:
26 F. VON LUCKE
The ‘cold monster’ breaks down into a vast range of practices and private
and public institutions that enact and develop strategies of government
that arrange the conduct of freedom in modern societies. (Huysmans
2008, p. 40)
Concerning contemporary security conceptions, governmental power

mainly resembles risk approaches (Elbe 2009, p. 132; see also Beck 2000;
Aradau and van Munster 2007; Corry 2012; Daase and Kessler 2007).
The literature has discussed many different conceptions to risk,3 most
importantly the distinction between ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown
unknowns’ (Daase and Kessler 2007, pp. 423, 426), which mainly relates
to the level of calculability of risks. While both dimensions in parts can
overlap with governmental power, I deem the first one more relevant,
which conceptualises risks as diffuse threats, which however, are still ame-
nable to calculation and risk management. In practice, by using statistical
methods and forecasts, political approaches to risk try to identify certain
risk groups or risky activities, and then instead of trying to eliminate them
altogether, aim at levelling these risk down to a tolerable, average risk level
(Oels 2011, p. 18; Corry 2012, p. 245). Furthermore, similar to govern-
mental power, risk schemes focus on long-term horizons and try to con-
trol the future by manipulating the right variables in the present, hence
attempt to prevent problems from spiralling out of control. Because they
build on probabilistic calculations, which are never so precise as to allow
for definitive propositions at the micro-level, these interventions usually
do not target single individuals (Daase and Kessler 2007, p. 423). Instead,
risk assessments function on an aggregate level and hence entail a more
economic use of resources than would be necessary to control every single
element of the process. Finally, due to their gaze into the future, risk con-
ceptions have a tendency to foster long-term solutions and to focus on
root causes instead of symptoms (see Elbe 2009, pp. 131–135).
Concerning the normative assessment, on the one hand, the focus on
groups or areas particularly at risk can enable appropriate policies to tackle
risks in a cost-efficient and indirect way and without directly prohibiting
or controlling behaviour. Moreover, governing though risk management
schemes can detect and possibly contain problematic developments before
they spiral out of control and hence contribute to tackling the root causes
3
see Daase and Kessler (2007), Aradau and van Munster (2008), Boyle and Haggerty
(2012), Hameiri and Jones (2013), Hameiri (2008).
rather than symptoms. Finally, its less direct and long-term perspective
might be better compatible with a gradual politicisation of an issue while
avoiding short-term panic politics. On the other hand, constructing risk
groups can become problematic if it leads to a stigmatisation and margin-
alisation of the identified groups. Ultimately, it can also construct these
groups as a danger to welfare of the population (Elbe 2009, p. 140),
which on the global level could mean a danger for global peace and secu-
rity. These risk groups would become the ‘bad’ circulation that has to be
avoided to ensure the unrestricted functioning of the overall system.
Another problematic aspect is that governmental power and risk tend to
intervene as little as possible and only aim at lowering the aggregate risk
to a tolerable level for the overall population. Eventually, this could mean
that outlier groups become disposable and that some groups or areas are
neglected. Finally, just as disciplinary power, governmental power is not
always easy to detect; therefore its possibly negative effects can materialise
unnoticed over a long time making it hard to resist or argue against it. The
following Table 1.3 summarises the features of governmental power.
Table 1.3 Governmental power

Modes of action Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

sectors conceptions
Productive, Macro- Risk, risk- Cost-efficiency, Stigmatisation,

indirect, perspective, management, focus on risk risk groups vs.
‘normalisation’, groups, riskisation, groups/areas, population,
statistics, focus future, contingency less invasive, disposability of
on population, insurance planning, long-term, certain groups
laissez-faire, sector, scenario prevention of once risk is
risk- economic planning, problems, tolerable for
management, solutions, resilience, possibly tackling overall
future- broad actor risk-groups, root causes population,
orientated, spectrum uncertainty, difficult to detect
cost-efficiency, precautionary
circulation, principle
long-term
Target:
population, risk
groups/areas
28 F. VON LUCKE
In a nutshell, Foucault describes the three forms of power as: ‘the

law [sovereign power] prohibits and discipline prescribes, and the
essential function of security [governmental power] […] is to respond
to a reality in such a way that this response cancels out the reality to
which it responds […]’ (Foucault 2006b, p. 76). Consequently, the
application of each of these three power forms encompasses very differ-
ent modes of action, opportunities and dangers as well as empowers
different actors. Yet, although Foucault clearly distinguishes between
different power forms and talks about ‘older’ and ‘younger’ ones, the
latter have not simply replaced the former (Foucault 2006b, p. 161).
Rather, in the governmentalised state and security practices, all three
power forms play a role and there is a constant struggle for dominance,
in which ‘older’ power forms can re-emerge as dominant (see instance
Larrinaga and Doucet 2008; Butler 2004). This is an important argu-
ment, since the literature on risk too often assumes that we now live in
the ‘era of risk’ and that other more traditional forms of security or
power cease to be important (Opitz 2008, p. 204; Larrinaga and
Doucet 2008, p. 38; Hameiri 2008; Hameiri and Jones 2013). Thus, I
follow Foucault’s original ideas and assume that we can understand the
process of the governmentalisation of the state and of security not as a
straightforward decline of sovereign or disciplinary power, but as a
readjustment of the system of correlation between the three power
forms with governmental power gradually transforming the other two
(Opitz 2008, p. 216).
Developing a Framework for Empirical Analysis: Three Climate

Security Discourses
Beyond the intrinsic qualities of these three power forms, the previous sec-
tion has discussed how they lie at the core of different logics or concep-
tions of security, e.g. national security, human security and risk or
synonymous concepts. Relating the power forms to these specific concepts
of security functions as a theoretical bridge between the governmentality
approach and securitisation theory (see also Elbe 2009, pp. 59, 86, 108,
131). On the one hand, it acknowledges the specificity of security or rather
of political process that designates something as a threat, which differs
from a mere politicisation of an issue. On the other hand, it opens the

meaning and consequences of security beyond the extraordinary measures
postulated by the Copenhagen School. It also heeds the constantly chang-
ing nature of security conceptions and hence the political effects of securi-
tisation processes. This transformation is particularly pronounced during
the securitisation process itself, which does not only ‘securitise’ formerly
non-security issues such as climate change but also works the other way
around. It thus contributes to a transformation of the political concep-
tions of security used in the securitisation process, which others have called
‘climatisation’ or ‘medicalisation’ (Oels 2012; Elbe 2011; Maertens
2018), and which I name the ‘bidirectional qualities’ of securitisation.
To structure the empirical analysis in the following country case chap-
ters, I assume three distinct ways of securitising an issue, that is, three
ideal-typical climate security discourses.4 Each discourse mainly draws on
one of these different power forms, which is linked to different problem
definitions, empowers different actors and legitimises different political
responses. Having said that, these discourses are ideal-typical simplifica-
tions and in the political practice, only rarely occur completely indepen-
dently from one another (Foucault 2006b, p. 23). Nevertheless, in order
to structure the empirical analysis, it makes sense to start out from this
simplified framework. To further guide the analysis, I divide each climate
security discourse into two dimensions. The first dimension—threat con-
struction—focuses on how the respective discourse evokes climate change
as a threat, which security concepts it uses and which referent objects it
constructs as primarily threatened. The second dimension focuses on the
political consequences of each specific discourse, thus on the power effects.
It thus looks at the transformation of the overall political debate, the legit-
imisation of individual policies and practices, the facilitation of certain
forms of governance and the empowerment of specific actors. Due to the
above-mentioned bidirectional qualities of securitisation, I do not only
look for these effects in the climate field but also look at other closely con-
nected policy sectors, most importantly defence and security, foreign,
development and disaster management policy.
4
I focus on ‘discourses’ and not ‘dispositives’ due to several reasons. Most importantly, I
concur with several other scholars that there is no clear-cut boundary between discourses and
dispositives as both try to understand the constitution of subjects and objects of governance
and emphasise the productive as well as ‘truth’ generating qualities of power (Bröckling and
Krasmann 2010, pp. 24, 26, 29; van Dyk and Angermüller 2010; Bührmann and
Schneider 2008).
30 F. VON LUCKE
Naturally, the separation of these two dimensions is a further method-

ological simplification. Following Diez and others, I concur that discourses
and their political consequences or power effects are co-constitutive (Kurki
2008; Milliken 1999; Diez 2001, p. 13) and similar to norms, discourses
possess a dual-quality (Wiener 2007, 2008). Thus, discourses can legiti-
mise policies and practices (i.e. have ‘quasi-causal’ effects, Yee 1996,
p. 97), but at the same time, these practices and policies strengthen or
perpetuate specific discourses (Salter 2011, p. 118). Nevertheless, indi-
vidual policies or speech acts do not alone constitute a discourse. They are
only one of many different layers that in the end come together in forming
the discourse and only become meaningful through their discursive repre-
sentation. Thus, while being in constant transformation, discourses never-
theless are relatively stable structures of meaning that do not change easily
(Diez 1999, p. 607). Ultimately, climate security discourses are instru-
mental in constituting climate change as a distinct political issue and in
legitimising political practices and policies. This does not mean that there
is a deterministic causal relationship but rather that they create a field of
possibility in which specific practices or policies become more likely and
feasible than others, which others have described a ‘causality as resonance’
(Connolly 2005, p. 870).
S overeign Power and Climate Change

The sovereign discourse securitises climate change in a direct and highly
visible way, using ‘national security’ or similar concepts such as ‘regional
security’, ‘territorial security’ or ‘military security’. It renders climate
change governable as a traditional security issue with a focus on sovereign
actions of the state and military/defence actors. Although in its general
conceptualisation, sovereign power is broader, and the focus is not exclu-
sively on state defence matters or the military, in a securitisation context,
it is justified to understand it in a narrower fashion.
Regarding the threat construction, the sovereign discourse focuses on
security threats for states and their territory, which ultimately can also have
repercussions for the international system of states. The emphasis of this
discourse is mostly on second-order socio-economic effects of climate
change. One of the core arguments is about climate change—in combina-
tion with population growth and degrading resources—leading to violent
conflict and therefore threatening the territorial integrity, stability and
thus national security of states. Whereas extreme climate change could
also contribute to such problems in relatively stable countries of the Global
North (especially concerning geopolitical tensions in the Arctic), for the

time being, these violent conflicts are primarily projected to break out in
the Global South. However, this does not prevent actors from the Global
North to construct a threat to the national security of industrialised states
or the international order. The key pathways in this regard are political
instability, the growth of terrorism, large-scale migration and the spread of
fragile as well as failed states, all of which could ultimately threaten indus-
trialised countries or their vital interests in the affected regions. A com-
mon example for this causal chain is the prediction of water and food
scarcity in Africa or Asia, which could lead to violent conflicts and under-
mine already instable states even further, which could eventually necessi-
tate or endanger (military) interventions by industrialised countries.
Concerning the power effects, a securitisation of climate change drawing
on the sovereign discourse increases the attention for the issue to a consid-
erable extent, elevating it into high and traditional security politics. Thus,
instead of the exclusive handling by for instance the environmental minis-
try, it facilitates the involvement of the foreign and defence ministry or
other associated agencies. Up until a certain degree of intensity, this can
be beneficial in terms of effective climate policies. It can (quicker) legiti-
mise ‘normal’ or non-military sovereign solutions to the climate threat
such as binding emission cuts, the legal ban of greenhouse gas (GHG)
emitting technologies, a CO2 tax or the increased governance through
executive orders and regulations by government agencies. However, in its
more extreme forms it can go beyond this legislative realm and facilitate
extra-legal decisions of the sovereign similar to what the Copenhagen
School has described as the main effects of securitisation. Examples are the
suspension of laws, the acceleration or even bypassing of democratic pro-
cedures or the involvement of the armed forces. This could ultimately also
entail military or political interventions to destroy GHG emitting indus-
tries or the states that harbour them (Trombetta 2008, p. 599;
Hartmann 2010).
Furthermore, as the sovereign discourse constructs climate change as a
problem of traditional national security, it has a tendency to point to solu-
tions in the military and defence sector. This can entail the preparation of
military bases and critical infrastructure towards climate change effects or
the expansion of border security measures to keep out climate migrants. It
can also mean to increase military planning activities for geopolitical con-
flicts fuelled by climate change or simply for the altered mission scenarios
around the world. In this vein, increased state efforts to secure its territory
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audience and apparatus, and, by the help of these external
appearances, immediately concluded that I had received the battery
discharge. The intellectual consciousness of my position was
restored with exceeding rapidity, but not so the optical
consciousness. To prevent the audience from being alarmed, I
observed that it had often been my desire to receive accidentally
such a shock, and that my wish had at length been fulfilled. But,
while making this remark, the appearance which my body presented
to myself was that of a number of separate pieces. The arms, for
example, were detached from the trunk, and seemed suspended in
the air. In fact, memory and the power of reasoning appeared to be
complete long before the optic nerve was restored to healthy action.
But what I wish chiefly to dwell upon here is, the absolute
painlessness of the shock; and there cannot be a doubt that, to a
person struck dead by lightning, the passage from life to death
occurs without consciousness being in the least degree implicated. It
is an abrupt stoppage of sensation, unaccompanied by a pang.”
Occasionally branched markings are found on the bodies of
those struck by lightning, and these are often taken to be
photographic impressions of trees under which the persons may
have been standing at the time of the flash. The markings however
are nothing of the kind, but are merely physiological effects due to
the passage of the discharge.
During a thunderstorm it is safer to be in the house than out in
the open. It is probable that draughts are a source of some danger,
and the windows and doors of the room ought to be shut. Animals
are more liable to be struck by lightning than men, and a shed
containing horses or cows is a dangerous place in which to take
shelter; in fact it is better to remain in the open. If one is caught in a
storm while out of reach of a house or other building free from
draughts and containing no animals, the safest plan is to lie down,
not minding the rain. Umbrellas are distinctly dangerous, and never
should be used during a storm. Wire fences, hedges, and still or
running water should be given a wide berth, and it is safer to be
alone than in company with a crowd of people. It is extremely foolish
to take shelter under an isolated tree, for such trees are very liable to
be struck. Isolated beech trees appear to have considerable
immunity from lightning, but any tree standing alone should be
avoided, the oak being particularly dangerous. On the other hand, a
fairly thick wood is comparatively safe, and failing a house, should
be chosen before all other places of refuge. Horses are liable to be
struck, and if a storm comes on while one is out driving it is safer to
keep quite clear of the animals.
When a Wimshurst machine has been in action for a little time a
peculiar odour is noticed. This is due to the formation of a modified
and chemically more active form of oxygen, called ozone, the name
being derived from the Greek ozein, “to smell.” Ozone has very
invigorating effects when breathed, and it is also a powerful
germicide, capable of killing the germs which give rise to contagious
diseases. During a thunderstorm ozone is produced in large
quantities by the electric discharges, and thus the air receives as it
were a new lease of life, and we feel the refreshing effects when the
storm is over. We shall speak again of ozone in Chapter XXV.
Thunder probably is caused by the heating and sudden
expansion of the air in the path of the discharge, which creates a
partial vacuum into which the surrounding air rushes violently. Light
travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, and therefore the
flash reaches us practically instantaneously; but sound travels at the
rate of only about 1115 feet per second, so that the thunder takes an
appreciable time to reach us, and the farther away the discharge the
greater the interval between the flash and the thunder. Thus by
multiplying the number of seconds which elapse between the flash
and the thunder by 1115, we may calculate roughly the distance in
feet of the discharge. A lightning flash may be several miles in
length, the greatest recorded length being about ten miles. The
sounds produced at different points along its path reach us at
different times, producing the familiar sharp rattle, and the following
rolling and rumbling is produced by the echoes from other clouds.
The noise of a thunder-clap is so tremendous that it seems as
though the sound would be heard far and wide, but the greatest
distance at which thunder has been heard is about fifteen miles. In
this respect it is interesting to compare the loudest thunder-clap we
ever heard with the noise of the famous eruption of Krakatoa, in
1883, which was heard at the enormous distance of nearly three
thousand miles.
When Franklin had demonstrated the nature of lightning, he
began to consider the possibility of protecting buildings from the
disastrous effects of the lightning stroke. At that time the amount of
damage caused by lightning was very great. Cathedrals, churches,
public buildings, and in fact all tall edifices were in danger every time
a severe thunderstorm took place in their neighbourhood, for there
was absolutely nothing to prevent their destruction if the lightning
chanced to strike them. Ships at sea, too, were damaged very
frequently by lightning, and often some of the crew were killed or
disabled. To-day, thanks to the lightning conductor, it is an unusual
occurrence for ships or large buildings to be damaged by lightning.
The lightning strikes them as before, but in the great majority of
cases it is led away harmlessly to earth.
Franklin was the first to suggest the possibility of protecting
buildings by means of a rod of some conducting material terminating
in a point at the highest part of the building, and leading down,
outside the building, into the earth. Lightning conductors at the
present day are similar to Franklin’s rod, but many improvements
have been made from time to time as our knowledge of the nature
and action of the lightning discharge has increased. A modern
lightning conductor generally consists of one or more pointed rods
fixed to the highest parts of the building, and connected to a cable
running directly to earth. This cable is kept as straight as possible,
because turns and bends offer a very high resistance to the rapidly
oscillating discharge; and it is connected to large copper plates
buried in permanently moist ground or in water, or to water or gas
mains. Copper is generally used for the cable, but iron also may be
employed. In any case, the cable must be of sufficient thickness to
prevent the possibility of its being deflagrated by the discharge. In
ships the arrangements are similar, except that the cable is
connected to the copper sheathing of the bottom.
The fixing of lightning conductors must be carried out with great
care, for an improperly fixed conductor is not only useless, but may
be a source of actual danger. Lightning flashes vary greatly in
character, and while a carefully erected lightning conductor is
capable of dealing with most of them, there are unfortunately certain
kinds of discharge with which it now and then is unable to deal. The
only absolutely certain way of protecting a building is to surround it
completely by a sort of cage of metal, but except for buildings in
which explosives are stored this plan is usually impracticable.
The electricity of the atmosphere manifests itself in other forms
beside the lightning. The most remarkable of these manifestations is
the beautiful phenomenon known in the Northern Hemisphere as the
Aurora Borealis, and in the Southern Hemisphere as the Aurora
Australis. Aurora means the morning hour or dawn, and the
phenomenon is so called from its resemblance to the dawn of day.
The aurora is seen in its full glory only in high latitudes, and it is quite
unknown at the equator. It assumes various forms, sometimes
appearing as an arch of light with rapidly moving streamers of
different colours, and sometimes taking the form of a luminous
curtain extending across the sky. The light of the aurora is never very
strong, and as a rule stars can be seen through it. Auroras are
sometimes accompanied by rustling or crackling sounds, but the
sounds are always extremely faint. Some authorities assert that
these sounds do not exist, and that they are the result of
imagination, but other equally reliable observers have heard the
sounds quite plainly on several occasions. Probably the explanation
of this confliction of evidence is that the great majority of auroras are
silent, so that an observer might witness many of them without
hearing any sounds. The height at which auroras occur is a disputed
point, and one which it is difficult to determine accurately; but most
observers agree that it is generally from 60 to 125 miles above the
Earth’s surface.
There is little doubt that the aurora is caused by the passage of
electric discharges through the higher regions of the atmosphere,
where the air is so rarefied as to act as a partial conductor; and its
effects can be imitated in some degree by passing powerful
discharges through tubes from which the air has been exhausted to
a partial vacuum. Auroral displays are usually accompanied by
magnetic disturbances, which sometimes completely upset
telegraphic communication. Auroras and magnetic storms appear to
be connected in some way with solar disturbances, for they are
frequently simultaneous with an unusual number of sunspots, and all
three run in cycles of about eleven and a half years.
CHAPTER IV
THE ELECTRIC CURRENT
In the previous chapters we have dealt with electricity in charged

bodies, or static electricity, and now we must turn to electricity in
motion, or current electricity. In Chapter I. we saw that if a metal rod
is held in the hand and rubbed, electricity is produced, but it
immediately escapes along the rod to the hand, and so to the earth.
In other words, the electricity flows away along the conducting path
provided by the rod and the hand. When we see the word “flow” we
at once think of a fluid of some kind, and we often hear people speak
of the “electric fluid.” Now, whatever electricity may be it certainly is
not a fluid, and we use the word “flow” in connexion with electricity
simply because it is the most convenient word we can find for the
purpose. Just in the same way we might say that when we hold a
poker with its point in the fire, heat flows along it towards our hand,
although we know quite well that heat is not a fluid. In the experiment
with the metal rod referred to above, the electricity flows away
instantly, leaving the rod unelectrified; but if we arrange matters so
that the electricity is renewed as fast as it flows away, then we get a
continuous flow, or current.
Somewhere about the year 1780 an Italian anatomist, Luigi
Galvani, was studying the effects of electricity upon animal
organisms, using for the purpose the legs of freshly killed frogs. In
the course of his experiments he happened to hang against an iron
window rail a bundle of frogs’ legs fastened together with a piece of
copper wire, and he noticed that the legs began to twitch in a
peculiar manner. He knew that a frog’s leg would twitch when
electricity was applied to it, and he concluded that the twitchings in
this case were caused in the same way. So far he was quite right,
but then came the problem of how any electricity could be produced
in these circumstances, and here he went astray. It never occurred
to him that the source of the electricity might be found in something
quite apart from the legs, and so he came to the conclusion that the
phenomenon was due to electricity produced in some mysterious
way in the tissues of the animal itself. He therefore announced that
he had discovered the existence of a kind of animal electricity, and it
was left for his fellow-countryman, Alessandro Volta, to prove that
the twitchings were due to electricity produced by the contact of the
two metals, the iron of the window rail and the copper wire.
Volta found that when two
different metals were placed in
contact in air, one became
positively charged, and the other
negatively. These charges
however were extremely feeble,
and in his endeavours to obtain
stronger results he hit upon the
idea of using a number of pairs of
metals, and he constructed the
apparatus known as the Voltaic
pile, Fig. 6. This consists of a
number of pairs of zinc and copper
discs, each pair being separated
from the next pair by a disc of cloth
moistened with salt water. These
are piled up and placed in a frame,
as shown in the figure. One end of
Fig. 6.—Voltaic Pile. the pile thus terminates in a zinc
disc, and the other in a copper
disc, and as soon as the two are connected by a wire or other
conductor a continuous current of electricity is produced. The cause
of the electricity produced by the voltaic pile was the subject of a
long and heated controversy. There were two main theories; that of
Volta himself, which attributed the electricity to the mere contact of
unlike metals, and the chemical theory, which ascribed it to chemical
action. The chemical theory is now generally accepted, but certain
points, into which we need not enter, are still in dispute.
There is a curious experiment which some of my readers may
like to try. Place a copper coin on a sheet of zinc, and set an ordinary
garden snail to crawl across the zinc towards the coin. As soon as
the snail comes in contact with the copper it shrinks back, and shows
every sign of having received a shock. One can well imagine that an
enthusiastic gardener pestered with snails would watch this
experiment with great glee.
Volta soon found that it was not
necessary to have his pairs of metals in
actual metallic contact, and that better
results were got by placing them in a
vessel filled with dilute acid. Fig. 7 is a
diagram of a simple voltaic cell of this
kind, and it shows the direction of the
current when the zinc and the copper are
connected by the wire. In order to get
some idea of the reason why a current
flows we must understand the meaning of
electric potential. If water is poured into a
vessel, a certain water pressure is
produced. The amount of this pressure
depends upon the level of the water, and
this in turn depends upon the quantity of
water and the capacity of the vessel, for a Fig. 7.—Simple Voltaic Cell.
given quantity of water will reach a higher
level in a small vessel than in a larger
one. In the same way, if electricity is imparted to a conductor an
electric pressure is produced, its amount depending upon the
quantity of electricity and the electric capacity of the conductor, for
conductors vary in capacity just as water vessels do.
This electric pressure is called “potential,” and electricity tends to
flow from a conductor of higher to one of lower potential. When we
say that a place is so many feet above or below sea-level we are
using the level of the sea as a zero level, and in estimating electric
potential we take the potential of the earth’s surface as zero; and we
regard a positively electrified body as one at a positive or relatively
high potential, and a negatively electrified body as one at a negative
or relatively low potential. This may be clearer if we think of
temperature and the thermometer. Temperatures above zero are
positive and represented by the sign +, and those below zero are
negative and represented by the sign -. Thus we assume that an
electric current flows from a positive to a negative conductor.
PLATE I.
By permission of Dick, Kerr & Co. Ltd.
HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER STATION.
In a voltaic cell the plates are at different potentials, so that when

they are connected by a wire a current flows, and we say that the
current leaves the cell at the positive terminal, and enters it again at
the negative terminal. As shown in Fig. 7, the current moves in
opposite directions inside and outside the cell, making a complete
round called a circuit, and if the circuit is broken anywhere the
current ceases to flow. If the circuit is complete the current keeps on
flowing, trying to equalize the electric pressure or potential, but it is
unable to do this because the chemical action between the acid and
the zinc maintains the difference of potential between the plates.
This chemical action results in wasting of the zinc and weakening of
the acid, and as long as it continues the current keeps on flowing.
When we wish to stop the current we break the circuit by
disconnecting the wire joining the terminals, and the cell then should
be at rest; but owing to the impurities in ordinary commercial zinc
chemical action still continues. In order to prevent wasting when the
current is not required the surface of the zinc is coated with a thin
film of mercury. The zinc is then said to be amalgamated, and it is
not acted upon by the acid so long as the circuit remains broken.
The current from a simple voltaic cell does not remain at a
constant strength, but after a short time it begins to weaken rapidly.
The cell is then said to be polarized, and this polarization is caused
by bubbles of hydrogen gas which accumulate on the surface of the
copper plate during the chemical action. These bubbles of gas
weaken the current partly by resisting its flow, for they are bad
conductors, and still more by trying to set up another current in the
opposite direction. For this reason the simple voltaic cell is
unsuitable for long spells of work, and many cells have been devised
to avoid the polarization trouble. One of the most successful of these
is the Daniell cell. It consists of an outer vessel of copper, which
serves as the copper plate, and an inner porous pot containing a
zinc rod. Dilute sulphuric acid is put into the porous pot and a strong
solution of copper sulphate into the outer jar. When the circuit is
closed, the hydrogen liberated by the action of the zinc on the acid
passes through the porous pot, and splits up the copper sulphate
into copper and sulphuric acid. In this way pure copper, instead of
hydrogen, is deposited on the copper plate, no polarization takes
place, and the current is constant.
Other cells have different combinations of metals, such as silver-
zinc, or platinum-zinc, and carbon is also largely used in place of one
metal, as in the familiar carbon-zinc Leclanché cell, used for ringing
electric bells. This cell consists of an inner porous pot containing a
carbon plate packed round with a mixture of crushed carbon and
manganese dioxide, and an outer glass jar containing a zinc rod and
a solution of sal-ammoniac. Polarization is checked by the oxygen in
the manganese dioxide, which seizes the hydrogen on its way to the
carbon plate, and combines with it. If the cell is used continuously
however this action cannot keep pace with the rate at which the
hydrogen is produced, and so the cell becomes polarized; but it soon
recovers after a short rest.
The so-called “dry” cells so much used at the present time are
not really dry at all; if they were they would give no current. They are
in fact Leclanché cells, in which the containing vessel is made of zinc
to take the place of a zinc rod; and they are dry only in the sense
that the liquid is taken up by an absorbent material, so as to form a
moist paste. Dry cells are placed inside closely fitting cardboard
tubes, and are sealed up at the top. Their chief advantage lies in
their portability, for as there is no free liquid to spill they can be
carried about and placed in any position.
We have seen that the continuance of the current from a voltaic
cell depends upon the keeping up of a difference of potential
between the plates. The force which serves to maintain this
difference is called the electro-motive force, and it is measured in
volts. The actual flow of electricity is measured in amperes. Probably
all my readers are familiar with the terms volt and ampere, but
perhaps some may not be quite clear about the distinction between
the two. When water flows along a pipe we know that it is being
forced to do so by pressure resulting from a difference of level. That
is to say, a difference of level produces a water-moving or water-
motive force; and in a similar way a difference of potential produces
an electricity-moving or electro-motive force, which is measured in
volts. If we wish to describe the rate of flow of water we state it in
gallons per second, and the rate of flow of electricity is stated in
amperes. Volts thus represent the pressure at which a current is
supplied, while the current itself is measured in amperes.
We may take this opportunity of speaking of electric resistance.
A current of water flowing through a pipe is resisted by friction
against the inner surface of the pipe; and a current of electricity
flowing through a circuit also meets with a resistance, though this is
not due to friction. In a good conductor this resistance is small, but in
a bad conductor or non-conductor it is very great. The resistance
also depends upon length and area of cross-section; so that a long
wire offers more resistance than a short one, and a thin wire more
than a thick one. Before any current can flow in a circuit the electro-
motive force must overcome the resistance, and we might say that
the volts drive the amperes through the resistance. The unit of
resistance is the ohm, and the definition of a volt is that electro-
motive force which will cause a current of one ampere to flow
through a conductor having a resistance of one ohm. These units of
measurement are named after three famous scientists, Volta,
Ampère, and Ohm.
Fig. 8.—Cells connected in Parallel.
A number of cells coupled together form a battery, and different

methods of coupling are used to get different results. In addition to
the resistance of the circuit outside the cell, the cell itself offers an
internal resistance, and part of the electro-motive force is used up in
overcoming this resistance. If we can decrease this internal
resistance we shall have a larger current at our disposal, and one
way of doing this is to increase the size of the plates. This of course
means making the cell larger, and very large cells take up a lot of
room and are troublesome to move about. We can get the same
effect however by coupling. If we connect together all the positive
terminals and all the negative terminals of several cells, that is,
copper to copper and zinc to zinc in Daniell cells, we get the same
result as if we had one very large cell. The current is much larger,
but the electro-motive force remains the same as if only one cell
were used, or in other words we have more amperes but no more
volts. This is called connecting in “parallel,” and the method is shown
in Fig. 8. On the other hand, if, as is usually the case, we want a
larger electro-motive force, we connect the positive terminal of one
cell to the negative terminal of the next, or copper to zinc all through.
In this way we add together the electro-motive forces of all the cells,
but the amount of current remains that of a single cell; that is, we get
more volts but no more amperes. This is called connecting in
“series,” and the arrangement is shown in Fig. 9. We can also
increase both volts and amperes by combining the two methods.
Fig. 9.—Cells connected in Series.
A voltaic cell gives us a considerable quantity of electricity at low

pressure, the electro-motive force of a Leclanché cell being about
1½ volts, and that of a Daniell cell about 1 volt. We may perhaps get
some idea of the electrical conditions existing during a thunderstorm
from the fact that to produce a spark one mile long through air at
ordinary pressure we should require a battery of more than a
thousand million Daniell cells. Cells such as we have described in
this chapter are called primary cells, as distinguished from
accumulators, which are called secondary cells. Some of the
practical applications of primary cells will be described in later
chapters.
Besides the voltaic cell, in which the current is produced by
chemical action, there is the thermo-electric battery, or thermopile,
which produces current directly from heat energy. About 1822
Seebeck was experimenting with voltaic pairs of metals, and he
found that a current could be produced in a complete metallic circuit
consisting of different metals joined together, by keeping these
joinings at different temperatures. Fig. 10 shows a simple
arrangement for demonstrating this effect, which is known as the
“Seebeck effect.” A slab of bismuth, BB, has placed upon it a bent
strip of copper, C. If one of the junctions of the two metals is heated
as shown, a current flows; and the same effect is produced by
cooling one of the junctions. This current continues to flow as long as
the two junctions are kept at different temperatures. In 1834 another
scientist, Peltier, discovered that if a current was passed across a
junction of two different metals, this junction was either heated or
cooled, according to the direction in which the current flowed. In Fig.
10 the current across the heated junction tends to cool the junction,
while the Bunsen burner opposes this cooling, and keeps up the
temperature. A certain amount of the heat energy is thus
transformed into electrical energy. At the other junction the current
produces a heating effect, so that some of the electrical energy is
retransformed into heat.
A thermopile consists of a
number of alternate bars or
strips of two unlike metals,
joined together as shown
diagrammatically in Fig. 11.
The arrangement is such that
the odd junctions are at one
side, and the even ones at the
other. The odd junctions are
Fig. 10.—Diagram to illustrate the Seebeck
effect.
heated, and the even ones
cooled, and a current flows
when the circuit is
completed. By using
a larger number of
junctions, and by
increasing the
difference of
temperature between
them, the voltage of
the current may be
increased. Fig. 11.—Diagram to show arrangement of two
different metals in Thermopile.
Thermopiles are
nothing like so
efficient as voltaic cells, and they are more costly. They are used to a
limited extent for purposes requiring a very small and constant
current, but for generating considerable quantities of current at high
pressure they are quite useless. The only really important practical
use of the thermopile is in the detection and measurement of very
minute differences of temperature, which are beyond the capabilities
of the ordinary thermometer. Within certain limits, the electro-motive
force of a thermopile is exactly proportionate to the difference of
temperature. The very slightest difference of temperature produces a
current, and by connecting the wires from a specially constructed
thermopile to a delicate instrument for measuring the strength of the
current, temperature differences of less than one-millionth of a
degree can be detected.
CHAPTER V
THE ACCUMULATOR
If we had two large water tanks, one of which could be emptied only
by allowing the bottom to fall completely out, and the other by means
of a narrow pipe, it is easy to see which would be the more useful to
us as a source of water supply. If both tanks were filled, then from
the first we could get only a sudden uncontrollable rush of water, but
from the other we could get a steady stream extending over a long
period, and easily controlled. The Leyden jar stores electricity, but in
yielding up its store it acts like the first tank, giving a sudden
discharge in the form of a bright spark. We cannot control the
discharge, and therefore we cannot make it do useful work for us.
For practical purposes we require a storing arrangement that will act
like the second tank, giving us a steady current of electricity for a
long period, and this we have in the accumulator or storage cell.
A current of electricity has the power of decomposing certain
liquids. If we pass a current through water, the water is split up into
its two constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen, and this may be
shown by the apparatus seen in Fig. 12. It consists of a glass vessel
with two strips of platinum to which the current is led. The vessel
contains water to which has been added a little sulphuric acid to
increase its conducting power, and over the strips are inverted two
test-tubes filled with the acidulated water. The platinum strips, which
are called electrodes, are connected to a battery of Daniell cells.
When the current passes, the water is decomposed, and oxygen
collects at the electrode connected to the positive terminal of the
battery, and hydrogen at the other electrode. The two gases rise up
into the test-tubes and displace the water in them, and the whole
process is called the electrolysis of water. If now we disconnect the
battery and join the two electrodes by a wire, we find that a current
flows from the apparatus as from a voltaic cell, but in the opposite
direction from the original battery current.
It will be remembered that one
of the troubles with a simple voltaic
cell was polarization, caused by
the accumulation of hydrogen; and
that this weakened the current by
setting up an opposing electro-
motive force tending to produce
another current in the opposite
direction. In the present case a
similar opposing or back electro-
motive force is produced, and as
soon as the battery current is
stopped and the electrodes are
connected, we get a current in the
reverse direction, and this current Fig. 12.—Diagram showing
continues to flow until the two Electrolysis of Water.
gases have recombined, and the
electrodes have regained their
original condition. Consequently we can see that in order to
electrolyze water, our battery must have an electro-motive force
greater than that set up in opposition to it, and at least two Daniell
cells are required.
This apparatus thus may be made to serve to some extent as an
accumulator or storage cell, and it also serves to show that an
accumulator does not store up or accumulate electricity. In a voltaic
cell we have chemical energy converted into electrical energy, and
here we have first electrical energy converted into chemical energy,
and then the chemical energy converted back again into electrical
energy. This is a rough-and-ready way of putting the matter, but it is
good enough for practical purposes, and at any rate it makes it quite
clear that what an accumulator really stores up is not electricity, but
energy, which is given out in the form of electricity.
The apparatus just described is of little use as a source of
current, and the first really practical accumulator was made in 1878
by Gaston Planté. The electrodes were two strips of sheet lead
placed one upon the other, but separated by some insulating
material, and made into a roll. This roll was placed in dilute sulphuric
acid, and one strip or plate connected to the positive, and the other
to the negative terminal of the source of current. The current was
passed for a certain length of time, and then the accumulator partly
discharged; after which current was passed again, but in the reverse
direction, followed by another period of discharge. This process,
which is called forming, was continued for several days, and its
effect was to change one plate into a spongy condition, and to form a
coating of peroxide of lead on the other. When the plates were
properly formed the accumulator was ready to be fully charged and
put into use. The effect of charging was to rob one plate of its
oxygen, and to transfer this oxygen to the other plate, which thus
received an overcharge of the gas. During the discharge of the
accumulator the excess of oxygen went back to the place from which
it had been taken, and the current continued until the surfaces of
both plates were reduced to a chemically inactive state. The
accumulator could be charged and discharged over and over again
as long as the plates remained in good order.
In 1881, Faure hit upon the idea of coating the plates with a
paste of red-lead, and this greatly shortened the time of forming. At
first it was found difficult to make the paste stick to the plates, but
this trouble was got rid of by making the plates in the form of grids,
and pressing the paste into the perforations. Many further
improvements have been made from time to time, but instead of
tracing these we will go on at once to the description of a present-
day accumulator. There are now many excellent accumulators made,
but we have not space to consider more than one, and we will select
that known as the “Chloride” accumulator.
The positive plate of this accumulator is of the Planté type, but it
is not simply a casting of pure lead, but is made by a building-up
process which allows of the use of a lead-antimony mixture for the
grids. This gives greater strength, and the grids themselves are
unaffected by the chemical changes which take place during the
charging and discharging of the cell. The active material, that is the
material which undergoes chemical change, is pure lead tape coiled
up into rosettes, which are so designed that the acid can circulate
through the plates. These rosettes are driven into the perforations of
the grid by a hydraulic press, and during the process of forming they
expand and thus become very firmly fixed. The negative plate has a
frame made in two parts, which are riveted together after the
insertion of the active material, which is thus contained in a number
of small cages. The plate is covered outside with a finely perforated
sheet of lead, which prevents the active material from falling out. It is
of the utmost importance that the positive and negative plates should
be kept apart when in the cell, and in the Chloride accumulator this is
ensured by the use of a patent separator made of a thin sheet of
wood the size of the plates. Before being used the wood undergoes
a special treatment to remove all substances which might be
harmful, and it then remains unchanged either in appearance or
composition. Other insulating substances, such as glass rods or
ebonite forks, can be used as separators, but it is claimed that the
wood separator is not only more satisfactory, but that in some
unexplained way it actually helps to keep up the capacity of the cell.
The plates are placed in glass, or lead-lined wood or metal boxes,
and are suspended from above the dilute sulphuric acid with which
the cells are filled. A space is left below the plates for the sediment
which accumulates during the working of the cell.
In all but the smallest cells several pairs of plates are used, all
the positive plates being connected together and all the negative
plates. This gives the same effect as two very large plates, on the
principle of connecting in parallel, spoken of in Chapter IV. A single
cell, of whatever size, gives current at about two volts, and to get
higher voltages many cells are connected in series, as with primary
cells. The capacity is generally measured in ampere-hours. For
instance, an accumulator that will give a current of eight amperes for
one hour, or of four amperes for two hours, or one ampere for eight
hours, is said to have a capacity of eight ampere-hours.
Accumulators are usually charged from a dynamo or from the
public mains, and the electro-motive force of the charging current
must be not less than 2½ volts for each cell, in order to overcome
the back electro-motive force of the cells themselves. It is possible to
charge accumulators from primary cells, but except on a very small
scale the process is comparatively expensive. Non-polarizing cells,
such as the Daniell, must be used for this purpose.
The practical applications of accumulators are almost
innumerable, and year by year they increase. As the most important
of these are connected with the use of electricity for power and light,
it will be more convenient to speak of them in the chapters dealing
with this subject. Minor uses of accumulators will be referred to
briefly from time to time in other chapters.

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The Securitisation of Climate Change

and the Governmentalisation of

More information about this series at

New Security Challenges

Cover illustration: © metamorworks/Shutterstock

Aysem Mert, Delf Rothe and Jürgen Scheffran. Finally, I am indebted to

Tübingen Franziskus von Lucke

1 Introduction and Theoretical Framework 1

2 United States: Climate Change, National Security

3 Germany: Climate Change, Human Security

4 Mexico: Analysing Securitisation in the Global South177

5 Revisiting the Securitisation of Climate Change

Franziskus von Lucke is a researcher in International Relations at the

ASP American Security Project

CISEN Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional – Centre for

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Table 1.1 Sovereign power 21

Introduction and Theoretical Framework

© The Author(s) 2020 1

climate change the undisputed focal point when it comes to linking

management schemes to increase the resilience of risk groups and areas in

The Evolution of the Climate Security Nexus in Academic

1991, 1994) as well as lead to hundreds of millions of environmental refu-

The Missing Conceptualisation of Power and the Absence

‘frames’ or ‘discourses’ of climate security (McDonald 2013; Detraz and

Core Argument and Structure of the Book

disentanglement of (successful) securitisation from exclusively extraordi-

and different discourses of climate security in particular (Nyman and

theoretical claims and develops the overall analytical framework. Mainly

Developing an Analytical Framework to Study

Starting out from the original ideas of Michel Foucault on governmen-

Power is a relationship between actors that produce knowledges and truths

Power in Foucault’s sense is everywhere not only in instances of direct

work in a direct, top-down fashion but tries to influence processes at the

During this era of governmentality political rule is exercised through a com-

The Governmentalisation of Security

disciplinary and particularly governmental forms of power as well (Elbe

multifaceted, with different conceptions of security and power involved

The Triangle of Sovereign, Disciplinary and Governmental Power

S overeign Power: Defending the National Security of Territories

pp. 207–208). Consequently, sovereign power is mostly exercised by the

have a politicising effect because it brings issues on the political agenda.

Table 1.1 Sovereign power

Modes of Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

Direct, State, military, National More attention, Panic politics,

 isciplinary Power: Securing Individual Human Security

Table 1.2 Disciplinary power

Modes of action Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

Productive, Micro-­ Human Focus on Surveillance,

conceptions. The main danger of a disciplinary power focused securitisa-

 overnmental Power: Managing the Risks of Populations

imperil the well-being of the population. Moreover, instead of normation,

Concerning contemporary security conceptions, governmental power

Table 1.3 Governmental power

Modes of action Actors and Security Opportunities Dangers

Productive, Macro-­ Risk, risk-­ Cost-efficiency, Stigmatisation,

In a nutshell, Foucault describes the three forms of power as: ‘the

Developing a Framework for Empirical Analysis: Three Climate

from a mere politicisation of an issue. On the other hand, it opens the

Naturally, the separation of these two dimensions is a further method-

S overeign Power and Climate Change

North (especially concerning geopolitical tensions in the Arctic), for the

In the previous chapters we have dealt with electricity in charged

1 Introduction and Theoretical Framework 1

2 United States: Climate Change, National Security

3 Germany: Climate Change, Human Security

4 Mexico: Analysing Securitisation in the Global South177

5 Revisiting the Securitisation of Climate Change

Table 1.1 Sovereign power 21

S overeign Power: Defending the National Security of Territories

isciplinary Power: Securing Individual Human Security

Productive, Micro- Human Focus on Surveillance,

overnmental Power: Managing the Risks of Populations

Productive, Macro- Risk, risk- Cost-efficiency, Stigmatisation,

S overeign Power and Climate Change